Advisory Committee on Teacher Education
and Qualifications

The Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications
(ACTEQ) is a non-statutory body set up in 1993, upon the
recommendation of the Education Commission Report No. 5, to provide a
single source of authoritative advice on teacher education programmes,
and on qualifications acceptable for teaching purposes in Hong Kong. Of
its 23 members, 17 - including the chairman - fare appointed from outside
the government. They include school heads, teachers, academics and
businessmen. The six ex-officio members are the Deputy Secretaries of
Education and Manpower and the Civil Service, the Director of Education,
the Secretary-General of the University Grants Committee, the Director
of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Executive Director of the
Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation.

The working group under ACTEQ to develop a mechanism for ensuring
that teacher education activities respond to the needs of schools and the
community finished the first phase of its work in 1996. For the second
phase, it has commissioned a consultancy study on establishing an
assessment and reporting framework to enhance the professional
relevance of teachers' performance.

The Task Force on Benchmarking formed under ACTEQ in response to
the recommendation of the Education Commission Report No. 6 has also
completed the first phase of its work to develop tentative benchmarks for
English-language teachers in lower secondary forms, and Putonghua
teachers as well as teachers using Chinese as the medium of instruction in
primary schools. A pilot exercise involving the assessment of 1 150
teachers in language examinations and classroom observations will be
conducted in 1997-98 to finalise the benchmarks and establish suitable
exemption criteria. Plans are being made to implement the language
benchmarks for new teachers starting the year 2000. Serving teachers
will be offered ample retraining opportunities so they can reach the
benchmarks within a prescribed period.

[Back] [Forward]