NETs' packages need to be competitive to ensure quality of professionals
The lead article '39pc of primary NETs 'not qualified'' (Education Post, July 12) alerted us to the mushrooming problem of unqualified Native English-speaking teachers.
I firmly believe that Hong Kong parents would not have been impressed to read the Education Bureau's own figures which showed that nearly 39 per cent of the new primary NET intake for 2007/08 were not teacher-trained.
Although I agree with Tom Grundy that some of these new young people would bring in 'new ideas and approaches' and may indeed be 'natural born teachers' in some cases, I cannot agree that the Native English-speaking Teachers' Association has been wrong to 'kick up a fuss about it'.
Professional standards do need to be safeguarded for the sake of Hong Kong students. We wouldn't entrust our teeth to an unqualified dentist, would we? So why should we entrust our children to an untrained teacher? I know the bureau is trying to oblige unqualified NETs to get Tefl/Tesl qualifications but it is often difficult to make untrained NETs and/or their schools comply.
What should help solve this problem would be to make the NET package more internationally competitive, as it was in 1998 when highly qualified applicants competed for limited places. The raising of the NETs' special allowance to a level that realistically reflects high inflation in the rental index, as Nesta suggested, would be a good start.
