EDUCATION
Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications
The Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications (ACTEQ) is a non-statutory body set up in 1993, upon the recommendation of the Education Commission Report No. 5, to provide a single source of authoritative advice on teacher education programmes, and on qualifications acceptable for teaching purposes in Hong Kong. Of its 24 members, 18—including the chairman — are appointed from outside the government. They include school heads, teachers, academics and businessmen. The six ex officio members are the Deputy Secretaries for Education and Manpower and the Civil Service, the Director of Education, the Secretary-General/University Grants Committee, the Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation.
To improve the quality of teachers, ACTEQ has recommended to the government to require, by phases, both non-local and local degree holders to have a local post- graduate certificate in education qualification for appointment as graduate teachers in public sector secondary schools. The recommendations are being implemented by stages. The working group under ACTEQ to develop a mechanism for ensuring that teacher education activities respond to the needs of schools and the community has finished the first phase of its deliberation. The Task Force on Benchmarking formed under ACTEQ in response to the recommendation of the Education Commission Report No. 6 has also completed the first phase of its work to develop benchmarks for English language teachers in lower secondary forms, and Putonghua teachers as well as teachers using Chinese as the medium of instruction in primary schools.
University Grants Committee
The University Grants Committee (UGC) is appointed by the Governor to advise on the development and funding of higher education, and administer public grants to eight publicly-funded institutions. It comprises 13 non-local academics, five local academics and four local professionals and businessmen. Its secretariat is staffed by civil servants.
When the UGC was established in 1965 to administer grants to two publicly funded tertiary institutions, there were only 4 100 full-time equivalent students. By 1995-96, there were seven such institutions with 62 000 full-time equivalent students With the addition of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) in 1996–97, the number of UGC-funded institutions increased to eight and the full-time equivalent student number increased to 67 900 (see tertiary education).
The UGC published a report on the review on the development of higher education in Hong Kong in November 1996. The UGC's recommendations include the overall student numbers at different levels during a period of consolidation in growth, the number of non-local students, the funding of continuing education, the provision of student hostels, the normative length of undergraduate study, language proficiency and the target of reducing unit costs by 10 per cent by the end of the triennium without detriment to quality, while further improving standards and meeting the changing needs of Hong Kong. In May 1996, the UGC published a report which described its work between July 1, 1991, and June 30, 1995.
The UGC plays a major role in monitoring quality assurance in its institutions. In order to ensure that mechanisms for promoting and improving the quality of teaching
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