Staff rooms are in revolt over a plan to make teachers sit examinations as part of a scheme to boost their language skills.
Two-thirds of those replying to a Professional Teachers' Union (PTU) survey described government proposals for compulsory benchmark tests as an insult to their profession.
Fourteen per cent said they would consider switching jobs if the scheme was introduced.
Last March, the Education and Manpower Branch announced more than 20,000 of the territory's teachers might be made to sit tests in English, Cantonese and Putonghua. Any who failed would have a grace period, suggested at 10 years, to reach the required standard - or face losing their jobs.
However, since the announcement, PTU vice-president Law Ping said the union had been inundated with telephone calls from teachers angry at the proposals.
'There is no precedent in requiring a profession of any kind to retake their qualification exams,' he said. The survey involved 1,400 questionnaires and drew 721 replies, 311 from secondary school teachers and 410 from primary school teachers.
Not all were opposed to a benchmark in itself - only 37 per cent thought it a bad idea - but a majority were hostile to the requirements of the government scheme.
