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(b) Training of Teachers in Hong Kong (A.C.E.C. 44/38).
Mr. Burney said that the Committee which had been appointed
to consider this question was very necessary. The results
of the existing system for the training of teachers were
clearly unsatisfactory, and he regretted not having devoted
as much time to this question as he had to other matters in
Hong Kong a few years ago. The system envisaged for the
future in the majority report followed more or less lines
laid down in England for the training of teachers.
•
The first category of teachers mentioned was one
employed almost exclusively in the Government En lish
schools (1.e. schools in which English was the medium of
instruction). He had hearu from reliable sources when in
Hong Kong that the University trained Chinese teacher was
neither sufficiently educated nor efficiently trained for
his work. He was inclined with Mr. Sayers to disagree
with the view that a four-year course followed by a one-year
course for a teacher's diploma was the shortest time in which
the pick of the local intelligentsia could be trained as
competent teachers; four years in all ought eventually to
be sufficient. The suggestion that five years was a
desirable time was an indication of the vicious circle which
maue it very uifficult to introduce any effective reform,
The first year of the under-graduates' course at the
University was taken up in great part in so improving the
students' English that they could follow courses of
literature at University level in the University.
They did
not really begin University degree work until their second
13
year
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