Insight: Fresh strategies needed to handle classroom diversity

Catering for student diversity in the classroom is an increasingly important issue for teachers and principals these days. Class sizes in Hong Kong have historically been big, which presents obstacles when trying to give students more individualised teaching and attention.

In recent years, two other problems have aggravated the situation. One is the implementation of an integrated education policy. Students with special educational needs (SEN), who had attended special schools, are now placed in the mainstream, with resource supports given to the schools admitting them.

Such needs come in different shades, ranging from the more serious, such as autism, to those with physical handicaps. Teachers are obliged to receive training on how to help SEN students learn with other "normal" students, who already display great diversity in their learning abilities and academic motivation. Teachers are hard-pressed to teach such large classes with such learning diversity, and take them successfully through the same curriculum.

Another trend complicating the situation is the decline in school-age populations because of low fertility rates locally. Schools not admitting enough students are phased out or operate under the threat of closure. This leads to upward movement of academically less able students from Band 2 and 3 schools to Band 1 and 2 because of parent aspirations and greater availability of places in the upper-band schools. Often the result is a mismatch between teacher skills and student competence. Teachers used to students with good academic readiness have to deal with those with lower academic achievements in the same classes, often with great difficulty.

These two phenomena conspire to make life miserable for many teachers and school administrators. Mishandling a diverse student body can result in resentment from students and teachers, low learning motivation, sluggish academic progress, class disruption, behavioural problems, bullying of the SEN students, and teacher frustration and burnout. The overall learning and teaching effectiveness can subsequently be lowered and in the long run, that can lead to a decline in the academic standards of Hong Kong students as schools generally have to take in those with learning difficulties.

To tackle the problem, a multipronged approach is needed. As teachers now need a different skill-set to cater for student diversity, across-the-board teacher retraining is needed to help them acquire the attitude and skills to handle both the "normal" and SEN students competently.