Supporting Teachers Facing Educational Challenges

According to “Back to the Future of Education - Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling”, a report published by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2020, learning is not limited to the school environment but also takes place in a diversified mode. The explosion in online learning during the pandemic illustrates this.

In Hong Kong, as e-learning trended upward, so did teachers’ workloads. This is a cause for concern. The question is not only how to enhance teachers’ capacity to adapt to today’s new teach-and-learn model but also how to support their future efforts to enable better learning by students.

Key points from secondary school teachers

● 72.9% agreed that self-directed learning is an ideal teach-and-learn model

● 66.4% hoped to reduce administrative work

● 61.3% wanted to spend more time engaging with students

● 57.1% wanted more time for lesson-preparation

● 35.3% worked over 60 hours per week

● 14.5% worked 71 hours or more per week

On a 0-10 scale where 10 signifies total agreement and 0 total disagreement:

● Average stress levels during the pandemic were 6.97

● Average capacity to redesign lesson content was 4.95

Comments from interviews

Interviews with individual teachers revealed that increased workload during the pandemic was caused by redesigning lesson content for e-learning. Some interviewees revealed that teachers also play an important role in student self-directed

Report No.59 HKFYG Youth I.D.E.A.S.

Education group

Published title Supporting Teachers in Facing Educational Challenges

Participants/respondents 354 secondary school teachers, 16 individual teacher interviews and 7 expert interviewees

More details in Chinese yrc.hkfyg.org. hk/2021/04/19/yi059/

Enquiries Vivian Yeung 3755 7038 learning, assisting with the selection of appropriate online materials and offering extra guidance to students with lower learning ability. However, they also reported a widening learning gap between students.

Reference was also made during interviews to Singapore, where the Ministry of Education has announced that a designated day for home-based learning will become long-term policy from June 2021 onwards.

By contrast, in Taiwan, a flexible learning curriculum was incorporated in the school syllabus in 2019 to encourage adaptive learning and enhance students’ learning interests. In Hong Kong, schools can act as learning hubs where ideas of teachers, students and the community can be exchanged, according to one expert interview.

Comments from Youth I.D.E.A.S.

think tank members

Derren Lam, group deputy convenor “Self-directed learning days could be introduced where students can choose topics outside the curriculum that match their interests. Individual schools could formulate details of at least three such learning days each academic year with the support of community-based resources including NGOs and universities. The Education Bureau could also set up an online platform to organize materials to be used with self-directed learning and daily teaching.”

Dicky Kwan, group member “The Education Bureau needs to increase the class-and-teacher-ratio first and then fix a mechanism for future calculating it in future. Then, teachers may be able to cope with the learning gap between students and improve the quality of their teaching. Second, the Bureau needs to review the professional career pathways of teachers so that their teaching and administration rank equally for the purposes of promotion.”