Education

Employment prospects for secondary school teachers remain gloomy over the next few years.

This is particularly so for teachers of liberal studies who may lose their jobs when the new school year starts in September.

In order to help schools implement the liberal studies curriculum, the Education Bureau disbursed a one-off grant of HK$320,000 to each public-funded secondary school for the 2010-11 school year.

This was aimed at enabling schools to create favourable conditions for the introduction of liberal studies at an early stage in the new academic structure.

Almost every school made use of the grant to hire one to two teachers to handle liberal studies.

However, the grant will only last until the current 2011-12 school year.

Meanwhile, the Education Bureau has still not stated clearly whether these liberal studies teachers will be able to keep their jobs or not. Given this, in the beginning of the 2012-13 school year, educational institutions may stop hiring these teachers due to a lack of funding. 

Schools are also threatened by declining student numbers, which could mean forcible closure by the government. 

The Education Bureau still rejects small class size teaching, meaning that for this reason, secondary school teachers also face a gloomy future.

Ho Hon Kuen, vice-chairman, Education Convergence