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Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li said yesterday that the pace of educational reform had not been hasty and the government had already taken many steps to ease the pressure on teachers.

Speaking in the Legislative Council (LegCo), Li urged the community not to bring emotion in their discussion over educational reform. "If the discussion turns emotional, it will only create conflicts and affect parents' confidence in Hong Kong's education system. It will not help solve the problem or help teachers face the difficulties."

As lawmakers passed a motion urging the government to take all necessary steps to reduce the workload of teachers, Li said the administration had consulted educationists and legislators on the timetable of educational reform. And a new policy was put into practice only after a preparatory period of three to four years.

"It is not fair to criticize that the education policies are being implemented hastily," Li said. Teachers were given several years' time to meet the requisite benchmark for language teaching, even though the policy came into force in 2000.

The starting session of the new three-year senior secondary education, too, has been postponed by a year to 2009, he said. "The first batch of students under the new senior secondary system will graduate with a (four-year) university degree in 2016. Looking back on the development of different initiatives, I wonder whether the community really thinks that the educational reform is being implemented hastily," he said.

The government will provide one counseling teacher to schools that have 18 or more classes in 2006-07, Li said.

Last week, the government allocated HK$1.65 billion for schools development, started a hotline to help teachers and formed an independent committee to study measures to ease their workload. The measures were taken after two teachers committed suicide earlier this month because they reportedly could not cope with the pressure at work.

After meeting officials earlier this week, educationists said the government could extend the deadline for teachers to achieve proficiency in language teaching.

During yesterday's debate on the motion, Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) Chairman Ma Lik said taking care of teachers' needs was an urgent task of the government.

Teachers were suffering from fatigue and had lost the motivation to improve their performance because of the educational reform and other problems facing the sector, including school closures because of the declining number of students, Ma said. Schools were competing negatively to attract students by launching unnecessary projects and promotions. "Schools are facing a critical moment and they need to struggle to survive. Some teachers have turned into salesmen promoting their schools."

Ma said the deadline for achieving the requisite benchmark to teach a language should be extended.

Teachers' needs

His colleague, Jasper Tsang, urged the government to create a favourable working condition for teachers.

Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions' legislator Chan Yuen-han criticized the government for using a business model to run schools, making them submit performance reports to evaluate whether money had been spent effectively.

She quoted teachers of a school as having told her that they needed to prepare 70 reports and other documents at one time. "I feel pity for them. With more money allocated, teachers fear that they would have to do more paper work."

Education sector legislator Cheung Man-kwong said that 11 teachers had committed suicide since 2000, when the educational reform was launched. The government should introduce small-class teaching.

Li told legislators that the Education and Manpower Bureau would return the unused amount from the HK$1.65 billion allocation to the treasury. The bureau has HK$7.1 billion of unspent funds, partly because of reducing manpower, from the past two years.

Legislators suggested that the government use the fund for educational purposes.

(China Daily HK edition January 19, 2006)