AN OVERSEAS one-year degree programme on education training to be offered to Hongkong students next academic year is likely to help ease the acute manpower shortage in schools.
The in-service full-time Bachelor of Education, provided by the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, has been recognised by the Hongkong government.
Non-graduate teachers holding diploma certificates will be upgraded to graduate teachers in senior secondary and matriculation classes after finishing the programme.
This will help fulfil the target suggested by the Education Commission in its fifth report of having 35 per cent of primary school teachers being upgraded to graduate status by the year 2007.
Students of the programme are required to complete 96 credits in subjects like Contemporary Issue in Education, Studies in Education, Teachers and the Curriculum, and Foundations of Teacher-Librarianship.
Applicants should have a three-year diploma of education and have at least a year's teaching experience.
Those who have finished a two-year educational training course and have three years' teaching experience can also apply but they need to study four additional subjects on educational theories in the university.
