Economic and Public Affairs (EPA) has been an integrated study of social, economic and political education for the junior secondary classes in Hong Kong since 1984, the year in which the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong was signed. The Hong Kong students could, from then onwards, have an opportunity to receive an education for citizenship, in preparation for the post-Joint-Declaration era from 1984 till the end of June, 1997. The scope of content in the three-year curriculum was analysed to have covered mainly the aspect of social education, while that for economic and political education was surprisingly insufficient, if a balanced 'education for citizenship' was intended. A revised syllabus with a set of new and rearranged topics in social, economic and political education was proposed, to cater for the needs of Hong Kong students from 1996 to the beginning years of the new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). It is extremely important and urgent for Hong Kong teachers to commit themselves more actively than at any other time in Hong Kong history since 1841, to facilitate an education for citizenship in schools.
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Beginning teachers, especially first year beginning teachers, are familiar with the traumatic time when they first encounter the real classroom situations (Veenman, 1984). The author of this paper has initiated a study on the changes of the major concerns of the first year beginning secondary school teachers in Hong Kong at four time points in their first year of teaching: exploring their changes of focuses in classroom and school contextual problems and comparing them with findings illustrated by Veenman (1984) in his summary of previous studies in various countries. As part of a more comprehensive study (Chan, 1992), the present study forms part of the cross-validation for the development of an induction model applicable for induction purposes of the beginning secondary school teachers. Results from a supplementary survey on a group of more experienced secondary school teachers’ views towards the same set of concerns through their responses to the same set of questionnaire would be analysed, compares and contrasted with those of the beginning teachers. The major implication for the study are (1) on the care, concern and help for the beginning secondary teachers’ personal and professional needs at different times during their adaptation period of learning to teach, and (2) on the development of an induction model with varying emphases at different time points for the school administrators to assist beginning teachers to cater for their own specific needs at different times, even in the first year, not to offer them ‘help’ which is basically not well-received as shown in some previous studies (Bullough, 199 1). An expectation for extending the induction or professional guidance period for secondary teachers in general would also be explored in the last part of the paper.