ENG-2017 — Page 176

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Education

To support Basic Law education, the government provides a range of support measures for schools, including learning and teaching resources, professional development programmes for principals and teachers, Mainland exchange programmes and a territory-wide inter-school Basic Law competition.

Elements of Basic Law education have long been incorporated into the curricula and learning activities of primary and secondary schools. The subjects involved include General Studies at primary level, Life and Society and Geography at junior secondary level, Liberal Studies at senior secondary level, and Chinese History and History at both junior and senior secondary levels.

Language Education

The Standing Committee on Language Education and Research advises the government on language education issues and on the use of the Language Fund as well as the policy and procedures governing its operation. The fund supports initiatives to improve proficiency in Chinese and English, including Putonghua.

The government's language education policy is to train the younger generation to become biliterate in written Chinese and English and trilingual in Cantonese, Putonghua and spoken English.

At the same time, the government believes students should undertake their general education in a language that is not itself a barrier to learning. The policy on medium of instruction is therefore to uphold mother-tongue teaching while enhancing students' proficiency in both Chinese and English. Public-sector primary schools generally teach in Chinese. Public-sector secondary schools can increase junior secondary students' opportunities for exposure to, and use of, English, taking into account their ability and desire to learn in English, teachers' capability and readiness to teach in English, and support measures to facilitate learning in English under fine-tuned medium of instruction arrangements that start at Secondary 1 and progress to a higher form at junior secondary level. At senior secondary level, schools can select either Chinese or English as the medium of instruction on a subject basis, depending on the school context and the readiness and capabilities of both teachers and students.

Schools are encouraged to devise a whole-school language policy in line with the policy goal on medium of instruction, sustain their good practices in promoting language learning and deepen the impact of 'reading to learn' by extending it to language across the curriculum through exposing students to a variety of texts of different themes. Schools are also encouraged to leverage the advancement of technology to provide opportunities to read and write across the curriculum through the use of printed and multimodal texts to motivate students, broaden their knowledge and help them relate the language to different subjects.

Native English-speaking Teacher Scheme

There are about 400 Native English-speaking Teachers (NETs) working in secondary schools and over 450 NETs in primary schools. They work with local English teachers to enhance teaching and make English learning experiences more authentic and engaging for students. They help create a rich English language environment and promote the use of innovative teaching

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