After the introduction of the nine-year compulsory education in 1978, educators are not satisfied with just a quantitative growth in education but request for a better guarantee in the quality of education. The demands for improving the mixed-ability teaching and meeting the diversified needs of students are well known. Services provided for children with special educational needs (SEN) have been reviewed in the Education Commission Report (ECR) No.2 while additional learning support for students in mainstream secondary school with a large intake of the bottom 10% students has been also will discussed in the ECR No.4. Suggestions on providing extra learning support have been highlighted in the ECR No.4. For example, the introduction of a school-based remedial support programme in secondary schools with a large intake of Band 5 students, the design of the core curriculum for academically low achievers and the establishment of more Practical Schools and Skills Opportunities Schools for students of low learning motivating arc well noted. In the report, it spotlights that approximately 14% of school population in Hong Kong experience difficulties in learning or adjusting to their school life. However, only 2% of them are provided with special educational service and support in special education classes or special schools. Considering the limited special education provisions and the policy of integration, Winter (1993), a local educator, predicted that it is likely that the above ratio of SEN children in mainstream schools and in special schools (6:10 will persist or even increase rather than decrease in future years). As most SEN children in mainstream schools find difficulties in school learning and adjustment, a great proportion of them are described as the academically low achievers or children with learning and behavioral problems. The notion of the behavioral problem and developmental issue in mainstream schools has attracted the public attention in both the ECR No

Nowadays, the application of computer technology in assisting the classroom teaching and learning is common and popular, particularly in special education. Many researches have indicated the inherent value and significance of using CAL in teaching children with special educational needs (SEN). It has been stated that the computer may serve the communicative, instructional, training, recreational, learning or adaptive purposes. School success in applying the technology depends on many factors but familiarity and proficiency of teachers to the increasing demand of such technology are essential elements. However, there is not much available literature illustrating the use of computers in mentally handicapped schools in Hong Kong. The purposes of this paper are to investigate the instructional use of the computers and the difficulties encountered in different types of mentally handicapped schools. The research has been carried out in different types of mentally handicapped schools in Hong Kong. By questionnaire, the resources, facilities and frequencies of use in computers have been identified. Variables such as school types, school policy, budget, teacher attitude and commitment and instructional practices were identified and their contribution to the effectiveness of the program have been examined. By the follow-up case studies in the three different categories of mentally handicapped schools, an in-depth study on the organizational factors, teachers' attitude and commitment, pupils needs and instructional practices have been investigated. Such quantitative and qualitative analysis aimed at illustrating a clear picture about the use of resources in the classrooms. The results indicated that nearly all the mentally handicapped schools used the computers in teaching their SEN students. However, the students encountered different sorts of difficulties in using the computers, owing to their physical and intellectual disabilities. It was found that some of the teaching activities

This paper examines the statistics on the official provision of teacher and teaching training in Hong Kong primary schools. It is found that there is no clear and operational definition of the expertise of teaching in the primary workforce, nor teachers are well-prepared for their development of teaching expertise. Under such an unfavourable teacher preparation and development, the writer called for teachers' self-initiation to develop "group expertise among themselves and make improvement in primary education. Introduction: This paper intends to evaluate whether the provision of teachers and teacher training can facilitate the identification and development of teaching expertise with, and for primary school teachers in Hong Kong. Data of such provision are compiled from the official teacher surveys and will be used for analysis. It is noticed that 'provision' of teachers and teacher training is the input to the education system and is only one of the many aspects that constitutes the development of teaching expertise. Other aspects like 'teaching and learning processes', 'teacher performance' and 'pupil achievement' are related and influential. Nevertheless, attention to the input condition can never be dispensable. The Theoretical Framework: Sternberg et al. (1995) argued that there exists 'no well-defined standard that all experts meet and that no nonexperts meet.' A prototype view is proposed to consider teaching expertise as a category of resemblance that 'is structured by the similarity of expert teachers to one another rather than by a set of necessary and sufficient features'. They postulated the following categories which they called the 'expert teaching prototype': The prototype expert teacher has 'extensive, accessible knowledge of subject matter and of teaching per se as well as knowledge of the political and social context in which teaching occurs. The prototype expert teacher posseses a broad perspective of well-organized domain knowledge which is contributive

Although a substantial body of studies has been focusing on exploring approaches to enhance the learning of children with special educational needs (SEN) in kindergartens, considerably fewer studies have been conducted to test early childhood educators’ confidence levels in early identifying and facilitating the learning and social development of children with SEN. This study took the initiative to conduct a large scale survey in the Chinese context, seeking to develop a good understanding of teacher preparation for identifying and supporting children with SEN. Over 5000 early childhood educators from 519 kindergartens and kindergarten-cumchild care centres (KGs) in Hong Kong participated in this survey study. Specifically, we examined these teachers’ confidence levels in terms of early identification and intervention through a wide range of instructional activities. We also investigated external needs these teachers perceived to be critically important for supporting SEN children. The role of integrated programme (IP) in these surveyed KGs on teachers’ confidence levels in supporting children with SEN was also examined. Implications of findings of the current study to early childhood education, improvements of existing facilities and resources to support teachers’ professional development are discussed.

Although children’s adaptive social and emotional development and academic performance/achievement are important indicators of school effectiveness, considerably less studies have been taken with a special focus on these social, emotional and academic gains among children with disabilities, particularly those integrated in regular classroom. From both perspectives of children with disabilities and parents of these children, this study tested and compared the patterns of the predictive effects of perceived social and emotional competences on academic performance between their perceptions. In total 307 children with disabilities and parents of these children (parents N = 180; children N =127) participated in this study. These children are integrated in mainstreaming primary schools (p1 to p3) in Hong Kong. An interesting finding was emotional competence was the stronger predictor of children’s academic performance compare to social competence. The predictive patterns were consistent based on the results from parents’ and children’s self-reported data (i.e., path coefficients from social and emotional competences to academic performance: β =.37 and β =.28 based on children’s data; β =.37 and β =.25 based on parents’ data, all path coefficients are significant at the .01 level). Similarly, in the results from both parents and children, we found that around 30% variance of academic performance could be explained by social and emotional competences as two predictors. These findings indicated not only a pivotal role of social and emotional competences, but also a more salient role of emotional competence in academic performance of children with disabilities. Both theoretical implications to emotion research in early childhood education and empirical implications to call for school support and practices to foster emotional competence of children with disabilities are discussed.

Realizing the changing needs of Hong Kong special schools, the Department of Special Education of the Hong Kong Institute of Education included the elements of assistive technology and multimedia teaching in the module "Technology in Special Education" for in-service teachers in special education courses. Funded by a UGC Teaching Development Grant, the module teaching team started research and launched this project on using multimedia technology in special education. In the project, the Special Education Multimedia Teaching Resource Unit (SEMTRUP) was successfully set up in the Department in September, 1998. This paper will introduce the details of the project and illustrate how the teaching and learning quality is improved during the process.