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Education

The government provides schools with additional resources, professional support and teacher training to help them cater for their students with SEN. The Education Bureau's (EDB) professional staff visit schools regularly to advise on school policies and support measures to implement integrated education. Educational psychologists, audiologists and speech therapists conduct case assessment, and 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. As at September 2014, about 42 per cent and about 20 per cent of the teachers in public sector primary and secondary schools respectively had completed structured training programmes to strengthen their capacity to cater for students with SEN. To enhance the support for ordinary schools to cater for students with SEN, the government increased the rates of the Learning Support Grant for public sector primary and secondary schools by 30 per cent in the 2014-15 school year. The ceiling of the Learning Support Grant is $1.5 million per school per annum. In subsequent school years, the grant rates and the ceiling of the Learning Support Grant for each school will be adjusted annually according to the change in the Composite Consumer Price Index.

In the 2013-14 academic year, an Endeavour Merit Award and an Endeavour Scholarship were set up for post-secondary students with SEN at publicly-funded and self-financing institutions respectively to recognise excellence.

The government helps gifted students develop their capabilities through various programmes and the EDB supports schools in designing and implementing gifted development programmes for students. Learning and teaching resource packs are disseminated to schools and put on the web. Professional development programmes and teachers networks equip teachers with the necessary gifted education knowledge and skills. Various territory-wide competitions provide platforms for students to learn from one another and to demonstrate their areas of strength. Outstanding students thus identified are provided with further training and nominated to participate in international competitions.

The Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education provides a wide range of courses, workshops, competitions, conferences, mentoring and online learning. Professional development programmes are offered to teachers through thematic courses, outreach services, and the Professional Development Framework co-organised with the EDB. Services for parents of gifted children included the Parent Education Programme, outreach andassessment and consultation.

Information Technology in Education

In line with the global trend of harnessing information technology (IT) to facilitate learning and teaching, the government has implemented strategies on IT in education and other e-learning initiatives, which have led to a gradual shift from a teacher-centred mode of teaching to a student-centred mode of learning. One of the major measures to be implemented by phases from 2015 will be the provision of wireless network services in classrooms of all public sector schools to facilitate the use of mobile computing devices for e-learning.

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