PTU News reporter

The Time-limited Capacity Enhancement Grant, which aims at relieving teachers?stress, will be terminated in the coming August. Raymond Wong, the Permanent Secretary for Education, is still hesitating over whether the grant should continue in future, which has however put the education sector under great anxiety.

The grant, offered within these three years, provided secondary schools and primary schools with the highest amount of 1.05 million and 1 million respectively, with which they can employ more manpower, so that teachers' stress can be relieved and teachers can have more time and space to facilitate the handling of different educational affairs. The grant, if cancelled, will increase teachers?pressure and workload tremendously. More terrifying is that owing to this cancellation, thousands of contracted teachers recruited under this grant will lose their jobs.

Our union is so worried about this issue that we have reflected to the Bureau from time to time, that for the abolishment of the grant, they should take into account of the job stability of thousands of teachers and the stress facing the whole education sector. Therefore, we urge the government to regularize the grant, so that those contract-based teachers can be kept in their positions, and the stability of schools can be maintained. However, the government, which announced the Budget in the last month, stated that the financial surplus of the education sector amounting to 2.5 billion this year would be returned to the government Treasury, and turned a blind eye to the thorniest issue facing the schools, that is, the issue of insufficient manpower. Needless to say, they have never considered finding a remedy to it.

Therefore, to show our determination, we, PTU, are inviting all our members, by fax, email and short clips on the web, to join our peace rally at Chater Garden in Central on the 15th of March, march to the Government Main Offices and show your cordial support. We are going to address a petition to the government and insist that the government should regularize the grant, and suggest making good use of the grant for integrated education, which can not only keep those contracted teachers in their positions, but also facilitate the handling of students of integrated education, so that the professionalism of the teaching staff can be more enhanced. We reiterate this will be our first warning to the government and urges her to regularize the grant. After the protest, we will take further actions, and meet the officials of the Bureau at the end of the month and discuss further arrangements for the supply and demand of primary and secondary school teachers.

Educational Bulletin

At the end of last month, the Education Bureau reported a detailed proposal of small-class teaching to the education panel of the Legislative council, stating that 70% of all Hong Kong primary schools, that is, 323 schools, showed that they would carry out small-class teaching in the coming school year. Michael Suen, the Secretary for Education, announced that from the school year of 2008, more than 700 two-year-contracted teaching posts would be offered, in order to facilitate the implementation of the school-based curriculum of small-class teaching, develop teaching strategies and materials, and serve as supply teachers for those who further their studies of small class teaching. However, Cheung Man-kwong suggested in the panel, that a timetable for the transition to the small-class teaching should be drafted for those schools, which have not yet shown if they would adopt small-class teaching, so that its implementation can be realized step by step in these schools.