'In the last few years, the government took a very firm stance against issues like small-class teaching ... and showing they distrusted us by introducing school reviews and professional benchmark tests.

'I believe this attitude will now be consigned to history.'

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen on Wednesday unveiled a raft of major spending proposals, which included extending free education to cover senior secondary school and the gradual introduction of small-class teaching in primary schools starting in 2009.

The lowering of the minimum Primary One admission threshold to 16 at the same time has also been welcomed as alleviating the threat of school closures.

But school and teacher leaders have said some of the less-trumpeted proposals included in Mr Tsang's speech and policy agenda are equally important victories for the teaching community.

Key points include the decision to meet long-standing demands to create official deputy principal positions at the primary level and increase the proportion of graduate teacher posts in all public sector schools.

An education official said these two measures - estimated to cost HK$550 million annually - were intended to send teachers 'a clear message of recognition and respect' of work they were already doing.

'There have been complaints about teachers not getting equal pay for the same job,' she said.

Education Bureau statistics show slightly more than 80 per cent of primary teachers held a university degree last year. At secondary the figure was 94 per cent.

However, at present only 32 per cent of primary teachers and 70 per cent of secondary teachers qualify for additional pay and benefits for holding the qualification.

Mr Tsang has pledged to increase that in two phases to reach 50 per cent and 85 per cent, respectively, by the 2009-10 school year.

'The ultimate goal is to reach 100 per cent,' the bureau official said. 'But we are not able to go to the end point right away.'

William Yip Kam-yuen, chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Heads of Secondary Schools, said secondary schools did not stand to gain as much as primaries from the policy, but it showed the government was being much more flexible.

President of the Professional Teachers' Union, Cheung Man-kwong - one of the bureau's most vocal critics in the past - said he had hoped some of the measures could have gone further, but described the address as 'generally positive'.

Civic Party legislator Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung said there was 'all of a sudden ... a big difference' in the government's attitude.

'The obvious reason is we are looking at a very large surplus by the year's end,' Dr Cheung said.