Low pay turns teachers away

AS the first director of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIE), Professor Leung Chi-keung has the daunting task of building up the institution as a centre of excellence for teacher training.

But no matter how hard he and his colleagues try to produce better teachers, there is one problem which their efforts alone cannot solve - some young people who have the aptitude to be good teachers are not training to do so.

The reason is simple. Most teaching posts in primary schools and lower forms in secondary schools are at non-graduate grades.

As more degree places become available at universities, most school leavers and matriculants prefer to get a degree instead of enrolling in the HKIE to obtain a teaching certificate, which will bind them to be non-graduate teachers receiving lower pay than graduates.

'Some people who are 'born' teachers are discouraged from becoming one because the disparity in pay [between graduates and non-graduates] gives the teaching profession, especially in primary schools, a low esteem,' said Professor Leung.

Indeed, it is ironic that at a time when schools are being called upon to produce better students to feed the universities and meet society's more sophisticated manpower needs, the quality of trainee teachers, measured in terms of entry standards, has been on the decline. Previously, trainee teachers were required to have two C grades, one D grade and three E grades, including English and Chinese languages, obtained in one sitting of the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. Since 1993, those with passes in six subjects from not more than two sittings were allowed to apply.

The diminishing attraction of a non-graduate teaching career was not unforeseen. In its fifth report published in 1992, the Education Commission noted: 'The expansion of tertiary education will change the profile of candidates for a non-graduate teaching career. In the past, many non-graduate entrants to the profession had an educational background which today would enable them to proceed to a first degree course.