Plans to boost English language and information technology teaching in schools are in jeopardy because of a lack of specialist teachers. The Hong Kong Education Policy Concern Organisation yesterday called on the Government to channel more resources into teacher quality. The call came as the Education Commission today discusses the setting up of a General Teaching Council. Teachers will have to meet certain standards and register with the council. Organisation chairman Mervyn Cheung Man-ping said: 'I wonder if our students can be properly taught when their teachers are not well qualified.' Trained teachers mean those with teaching certificates. Subject-trained teachers are those who teach any of the two major subjects they have taken at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, post-secondary colleges or universities. Mr Cheung said figures from the Education Department showed 15 per cent of the 19,000 permanent teachers in the primary sector were untrained. In the secondary sector, 21 per cent of the 22,400 permanent teachers were untrained. But even if the teachers were trained they were not necessarily subject-trained. About 53 per cent of graduate, English-language teachers in government or government-aided primary schools were not subject-trained. The figure for non-graduate teachers was 52 per cent. In the secondary sector, 45 per cent of graduate, English-language teachers and 63 per cent of computer studies teachers were not subject-trained. The figures for non-graduate teachers were 32 per cent and 82 per cent respectively.