ABSTRACT
Hong Kong’s performance in international educational test comparison has been consistently high. In the face of global change, no system can stay static and like many other places Hong Kong has initiated major educational reform to protect its international competitiveness in many spheres. To understand Hong Kong’s current educational situation and the changing nature of teacher education and teacher development, it is helpful, and possibly necessary, to look back. Hong Kong is now a packed modern urban space, a major high tech place with many high tech jobs, but its development has been extremely rapid. Its population grew from 2 million in the early 1960s to 7 million in 2011, with a surge in population with many immigrants from mainland China in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mirroring a similar influx in the period following 1949. This huge increase in population required extensive housing development, the building and resourcing of schools and the finding of teachers to teach in them, along with the expansion of other public services. Classrooms were designed for the formal teaching of 40 students in a class. In spite of many difficulties, universal primary education was introduced in 1972 and nine-year compulsory education in 1978.
