HONG KONG 2004 - Education

The Curriculum Development Council (CDC) is an advisory body that makes recommendations to the Government on all matters relating to school curriculum development from kindergarten to senior secondary forms. Its membership includes heads of schools, practising teachers, parents, employers, academics from tertiary institutions, professionals from related fields or related bodies, representatives from the HKEAA and the VTC, as well as officers from the EMB.

The curriculum reform is the core component of the education reform. It aims to motivate students to learn, to enhance their knowledge and abilities, and develop in them positive values and attitudes to establish a solid foundation for lifelong learning and whole-person development.

The CDC has developed a "Basic Education Curriculum Guide" setting out the themes essential for whole-school curriculum development, and school curriculum leaders have been appointed to support primary school heads in curriculum development. Other support measures include Seed (Research and Development) Projects which generate useful knowledge and experiences in the context of learning and teaching for other schools' reference and resources to support the new curricula.

The school curriculum in Hong Kong is defined in terms of the five essential learning experiences, i.e. moral and civic education, intellectual development, community service, physical and aesthetic development, and career-related experiences for lifelong learning and whole-person development of students.

In 2001, the CDC developed an open, coherent and flexible curriculum framework that enables students to meet the challenges of a knowledge-based society. The framework is composed of three interconnected components: Key Learning Areas², Generic Skills³ and Values and Attitudes⁴. The Key Learning Areas serve as the major knowledge domain of subjects providing contexts for the development of generic skills and values and attitudes. By making use of the curriculum framework, schools are now offering their students a broad and balanced curriculum.

To cope with the challenges of the 21st century and the demands of the rapidly developing knowledge-based society, the Government endorsed EC's recommendation on reforming the academic structure for senior education and higher education to help develop the full potential of students. A three-month consultation was launched in October 2004 to collect public views on its design blueprint, timetable for implementation and financial arrangement.

Information technology (IT) in education prepares our students for the information age and to equip them to become lifelong learners. The first five-year strategy on IT in education was launched in 1998. By early 2004 each primary school had on average 91 computers while secondary school had 247. All schools now have broadband connection to the Internet.

Riding on the achievements of the first five-year strategy, a new student-centred IT in education strategy was launched in July 2004 to enhance community-wide support for a sustainable development of IT in education. The key goals of the next strategy are to empower learners and teachers with IT, to enhance e-leadership capacity in schools, to develop more digital resources for learning, to improve schools' IT infrastructure, to provide continuous research and development, and to promote community-wide support.

The Hong Kong Education City was launched in August 2000 to promote quality education and IT for lifelong and life-wide learning. It is now one of the most popular education portals in Hong Kong and will continue to strengthen its role as an agent for sourcing and disseminating digital education resources.

The SCOLAR was set up in 1996 to advise the Government on language education issues in general. The Standing Committee identifies research and development projects necessary for the enhancement of language proficiency, and advises the Trustee of the Language Fund on the policy and procedures governing the operation of the fund. By year-end, the Language Fund has disbursed about $768.25 million for 292 approved projects aimed at enhancing the language proficiency of the population.

Native-speaking English Teachers (NETs) are recruited to public sector schools to teach English. They also help change teaching practices by working with local English teachers to make the learning of English more interesting. At present, about 470 NETs are serving in secondary schools, and some 310 in primary schools. More NETs are being recruited to teach in primary schools.