PTU News Reporter

The lack of investment in public education in Hong Kong has long been an issue. Since the education reform, the government has been issuing one-off funds to meet recurrent education needs, causing serious side effects. The latest IMD World Talent Ranking reveals Hong Kong lags behind in educational investment. After taking office, the new government added a total of 8.4 billion of recurrent expenditure on education to show responsibility. Yet, improving education cannot stop there and the government must catch up with their investment in public education. The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (HKPTU) hopes the budget delivered next month will prove the government’s readiness to allocate sufficient resources to education and to adopt improvement measures.

World Talent Ranking: Hong Kong Slips due to Lack of Investment in Education

The IMD World Talent Ranking 2018 issued by the International Institute for Management Development last November shows that Hong Kong slipped significantly in Investment & Development mainly due to the lack of resources in public education. Developed countries in Europe and the United States spend approximately 5% of their GDP on public education while Hong Kong spends approximately 3.5% and ranks 56th among 63 countries/regions. Although education expenditure reached 4% of the GDP last year, the increase was mainly in irregular expenses while recurrent expenditure made up only 3% of the GDP.

Education is a long-term investment and increase should be made in recurrent expenditure. The HKPTU expects the government to allocate resources continuously and increase recurrent expenditure on education to at least 4% of GDP with the long-term goal to reach 5%, the standard of developed countries, in order to continuously improve education quality.

Adequate Budget Must Be Planned for Improvement Measures

The new government is relatively receptive to feedback from the education sector. Measures were adopted in the past year to respond to demands in various aspects such as improving student-teacher ratio, implementing all-graduate teaching force policy, counselling services, subsidies for self-financing programmes, integrated education, and special education.

With respect to early childhood education, the HKPTU demands implementation of a pay scale for kindergarten teachers, improving the remuneration packages of principals, increasing early childhood education unit cost, full subsidies for whole-day and long whole-day kindergartens, planning kindergarten sites, improvement of teaching and administration manpower in kindergartens, addition of courses and special educational needs coordinators, etc. As for primary, secondary, and special schools, the government should continue to improve student-teacher ratio, implement all-graduate teaching force policy, and improve manpower at the middle management level. The government ought to respond swiftly to the fluctuation of number of students, adopt stabilization measures, and implement small class teaching. The students per class at special schools should be reduced and counselling services at secondary and primary schools ought to be enhanced. In tertiary and vocational education, the number of places at universities should be substantially increased and subsidies for self-financing students should be extended.

These are all policies the education sector agrees on and would hopefully be adopted in priority in the upcoming budget to enhance education and to benefit students.

年近歲晚，又是大掃除清潔的季節。工會知道各位會員忙於工作未必有時間進行仔細清潔。所謂「術業有專攻」，交由專業的家務助理幫助大家進行大掃除清潔就再好不過。
香港家務助理總工會（職工盟屬會）正舉行大掃除配工計劃，歡迎各位登記成為僱主。
詳情可致電: 2651-9660 或

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香港家務助理總工會建議年尾大掃除時薪：

• 2019年1月29日前 時薪$150
• 2019年1月30日起 時薪 議價（$160起）

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教協焦點 ■ 出版部主任 陳國權

剛踏進2019年便令人聯想起將要來臨的多個重大周年紀念日子。

一百年前，高舉德先生 （Democracy —民主）和賽先生（Science —科學）大纛的五四運動，撼動民心，當年的大學生喚醒國民關注中華民族的命運；三十年前，波瀾壯闊的八九民運以「反腐敗，反官倒」為口號，廣大學生支持推動中國民主化，雖然被鎮壓告終，可是民心不死，俟後的維權人士在近年艱難歲月中依然堅持抗爭；五年前，催淚煙霧中誕生的雨傘運動，以香港本色的爭取「真普選」為主調，觸動過不少年輕學生的心，近年在特區政府的不斷打壓下，還是未忘初心。

綜觀這幾次歷史上的全國性和全港性運動，「民主」是人民響亮清晰的訴求，站在最前線無畏無懼的都是年輕人。因此，在今年5月4日 （五四運動一百周年）、6月4日（八九民運三十周年）和9月28日（雨傘運動五周年）的周年紀念日子裡，小學常識科老師、中學歷史科和通識科老師，以及中小學負責公民教育的老師，都必須把握機會，以主題形式向學生介紹有關事件，凸顯追求「民主」的訊息必然是其中重要議題。

2019年是回顧和推動民主教育的一年，讓我們一起做好「民主教育」的工作！

（此文為作者25/1/2019刊於《立場新聞》「博客榜」原文節錄本）