Teacher Training & Qualifications

The Government aims to build a teaching profession of high commitment and quality, with the ultimate aim of facilitating quality education for our students:

• by setting professional standards for entry into the teaching profession
  
  Any person who wishes to teach in a school must be registered under the Education Ordinance as either a registered teacher or a permitted teacher. Registered teachers are persons who possess the approved teacher qualifications laid down in the Education Ordinance, whereas permitted teachers are in possession of academic qualifications only, permitted teachers are given a permit to teach specified subject(s) in specified schools. Teacher registration ensures the professional standards of teaching.
  
  To further enhance the professionalism and professional status of teachers, the Government has commissioned a study on the development of teacher competencies and a professional development framework that would provide the empirical basis and contribute to enriching a common continuing professional development framework for teachers.

• by setting language proficiency requirement (LPR) for teachers of English and Putonghua
  
  The LPR provides an objective reference against which to gauge teachers' proficiency to help them pursue continuous professional development. All English and Putonghua teachers holding a regular post in a public sector school or a local private primary/secondary day school offering a formal curriculum should meet the LPR of the relevant language(s).  They can meet the LPR through exemption or open assessment.
  
  Any regular teacher who begins teaching English or Putonghua should at least have met the LPR in all the papers except the Classroom Language Assessment (CLA) prior to teaching the language subject.  He/she should meet the LPR in CLA within the first year of his/her taking up the duty.

• by requiring all new teachers to be trained graduates
  
  It is the Government's long term policy to require all new teachers to be professionally trained and degree holders. The sub-degree pre-service teacher training places for primary and secondary school teachers are being progressively upgraded to degree or above levels. From the 2004/05 school year, all graduates of pre-service primary and secondary teacher education programmes will be degree holders.