TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 49

5.26

It was finally considered less disturbing for schools for alternative (b) to be adopted, and it is proposed that each teacher should be offered two periods of about 8 weeks continuous training, the first to take place from 5-10 years after initial training and the second about 10 years later.

5.27

The retraining of teachers entering the profession from September 1981 should be compulsory and for existing teachers the Director of Education should have the power to direct any teacher to undergo one or more such courses. The aim would be to provide retraining for all new teachers entering the profession and for as many existing teachers as possible. For existing teachers emphasis should be placed on those adopting the 'learning-by-doing' approach and those in special need of training in terms of current performance or the inadequacy of their initial training.

5.28

The need for training in the 'learning-by-doing' approach is particularly urgent in order to support the proposals made elsewhere in this Green Paper, and it is proposed that the retraining scheme should start in 1981/82 with 8-week courses for teachers in schools proposing to adopt that approach the following year. The full scheme of retraining should be in operation by 1986. In order to meet training requirements it is estimated that there is a need for facilities for retraining 200 teachers at any one time.

5.29

In view of the relatively long periods they would have to be away from school it is proposed that teachers in training should be replaced by temporary teachers, and that schools should release four teachers for training during a year one after the other so that a replacement teacher could be engaged for the full year. This replacement teacher should be paid at standard rates including holidays and the work should count for service and increments as in the case of normal teaching. With a 24-classroom school and a staff of about 27 the school would need on average to train four teachers in this way about every three years. Under certain circumstances this might be most effectively implemented by training teachers from a particular school over a continuous period of 3 or 4 years followed by a suitable gap in training.

5.30

The total cost of implementing this scheme of retraining is estimated to be about $8 million per annum once it is in full operation.

Manning scales

5.31

The actual staff needs of primary schools have been examined and although no change in the basic teacher class ratio of 1.1:1 is proposed, it is clear that there are certain specific duties that require additional staff, or more exactly, require teachers with a reduced normal teaching load to enable them to carry these out. These duties include:

(a)

(b)

remedial teaching for children in each school to remove the need for excessive repetition;

replacing teachers on courses (other than those for systematic retraining) run by the Advisory Inspectorate to enable the training to be carried out half in school time and half in the teachers' own time;

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