[Archive] Parent education

LEGCO QUESTION NO. 13(WRITTEN REPLY)

Date of Meeting: 26 June 2000

Asked by : Hon YEUNG Yiu-chung

Replied by : SEM

Question :

Will the Government inform this Council of:

the work items initiated in respect of "parent education" in the past five years, as well as the financial provision for these items and the number of parents involved;
the difficulties encountered in implementing parent education at present; and
the measures it will adopt to enhance parent education?

Reply:

Madam President,

The Government fully recognizes the importance of parent education. Due emphasis has been made on this front over the years. At present, Government-funded parent education is mainly delivered through the Education Department (ED), Social Welfare Department (SWD) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Education Department

A Committee on Home-School Co-operation (CHSC), with members appointed by the Director of Education and drawn from parent representatives and educators, was set up in 1993 to advise on ways to promote home-school co-operation including parent education. At present, the Committee is staffed by ED. The Committee is also provided with resources by the Department to organize activities. Since its establishment in 1993, CHSC has been playing an active role in promoting parent education and raising parents' awareness of their role in the education process. Activities organized by the Committee include publishing brochures on parenting skills, conducting surveys relating to parents' involvement in education, setting up a parent centre to provide reference materials for parents, and launching a website on home-school co-operation.

On the advice of the Committee, ED disburses grants to schools for setting up parent-teacher associations (PTAs), and to PTAs for running various kinds of activities which help promote home-school co-operation. Many of these funded activities are related to parent education.

The expenditure on home-school co-operation (including parent education) activities funded by ED in the past five years is as follows -

Financial year	Expenditure ($million)
1995-96	2.8
1996-97	3.0
1997-98	3.1
1998-99	5.0
1999-2000	9.0

ED does not keep separate records on the expenditure spent on parent education activities. Nor does the Department keep statistics on the number of parents involved in such activities.

Social Welfare Department and Non-Government Organisations

SWD, through the Department itself and its subvented NGOs, promotes parent education as part of the family life education programme. Activities organized include workshops and talks on parenting skills, supportive groups for parents to share experiences, publishing pamphlets on parent education, and launching a website on family life education.

SWD does not keep separate records on the expenditure spent on family life education nor parent education. The Department also does not keep statistics on the number of parents involved in these activities.

A major difficulty encountered in promoting parent education is that many parents, due to various reasons, could not devote much time in joining these activities. The lack of parents' awareness of their importance in the education process also affects the promotion of parent education.

ED, SWD and NGOs will continue their existing efforts to promote parent education. For example, ED will organize a number of activities including the following -

launching TV programmes on parent education starting from end July 2000;
providing more training to PTA members on how to organize parent education programmes;
enriching the content of the website on home-school co-operation; and
publishing feature articles in newspapers to promote good parenting skills.

SWD will also enhance its website on family life education.