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"After receiving recommendations from consultants, ACTEQ will make proposals to the Government as soon as possible," Mr Wong said.
Commenting on teachers' and educators' support of ECR6's recommendation that the workload of language teachers should be reviewed and reduced, Mr Wong said the Education Department would soon set up a task group to review and assess the workload of language teachers at a cost of $0.8 million.
On EC's recommendation that support services should be provided for teachers such as the setting up of a Language Resource Centre and computerisation projects to promote professional exchanges of ideas and materials, Mr Wong said he had allocated within his global allocation a recurrent annual expenditure of $3.4 million a year to improve the support services for teachers.
"Also, applications will also be made this month to the Language Fund for the establishment of a Language Resource Centre at a cost of $3 million," he added.
To implement EC's other recommendations, Mr Wong also outlined the following programme of work:
SCOLAR which will consist of representatives of employers' associations and the business sector to consider how to develop ECR6's recommendation on launching a new Intensive Vocational Language Scheme to provide tailor-made language programmes both in English and Putonghua for school leavers joining the workforce.
Education Department to set up a task force to work out details on extending the existing Reading Schemes in Chinese and English to cover all levels of primary and secondary schooling and to develop similar schemes to strengthen the writing skills of
students. About $1 million will be required for this programme,
In addition, the Government will examine the feasibility of introducing exit examination in tertiary institutions and immersion-type language training to enhance the language proficiency of Secondary Seven students.
Mr Wong stressed that the Government fully recognised the need to enhance the language proficiency of the young people in Hong Kong and was committed to make available sufficient resources to meet the major recommendations of ECR6 under Phase One.