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Education

Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs in Ordinary Schools

The government has been providing ordinary schools with additional resources, professional support and teacher training to help them cater for their students with special educational needs. The EDB's professional staff pay regular visits to schools to render professional advice on school policies and support measures to implement integrated education. Educational psychologists, audiologists and speech therapists conduct case assessment, provide consultation and support services for schools. In addition, resource packages are also developed for teachers.

The government is progressively extending the School-based Educational Psychology Service to cover all public sector primary and secondary schools by the 2016-17 school year. To strengthen teachers' capacity in catering for students with special educational needs, structured training programmes are arranged. As at November 2013, over 42 per cent and about 18 per cent of the teachers in public sector primary and secondary schools respectively had completed such training. To strengthen the support for schools that have a larger number of students with special educational needs, the ceiling of the Learning Support Grant for public sector primary and secondary schools has been raised from $1 million to $1.5 million per school per annum with effect from the 2013-14 school year.

E-Textbook Market Development Scheme (EMADS)

The government launched Phase One of EMADS in 2012 to facilitate and encourage the development of e-textbooks for the local curriculum. The e-textbooks developed under Phase One are expected to be available for use in the 2014-15 school year. Phase Two (covering more subjects) was launched in 2013 and 20 applications for development of e-textbooks have been approved.

Overall Education Landscape

Expenditure on Education

The total budgeted expenditure on education in the 2014-15 financial year is $75.4 billion (18.3 per cent of total government expenditure), of which $67.1 billion is recurrent expenditure on education (21.8 per cent of total recurrent government expenditure).

Education Commission

The Education Commission advises the government on education objectives and policies and co-ordinates the work of all major education-related advisory bodies in the planning and development of education at all levels. The commission also advises the government on important implementation issues.

The commission comprises a chairman, a vice-chairman who is the Permanent Secretary for Education, eight ex-officio members and a number of non-official members. The eight ex-officio members comprise the chairpersons of the Committee on Professional Development of Teachers and Principals, the Committee on Self-financing Post-secondary Education, the Curriculum Development Council, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority Council, the Quality Education Fund Steering Committee, the Standing Committee on

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