The Hong Kong Institute of Education is offering a Three-year Full-time Certificate in Education Course (Primary Education) and an In-service Course of Training for Teachers in Primary Schools. Because the latter course has a fewer course hours than the former course, there is a notion in the Institute of lengthening the latter course in order to upgrade it into a Certificate in Primary Education (Part-time) Course. The author is interested to compare the Final-year trainees in these two courses on their Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Science Teaching, hoping that it would activate the comparative studies on some other aspects of these two courses to see if the findings would support the above-mentioned notion to upgrade the latter course. An instrument HKSTEBI was generated to measure the construct of Science teaching efficacy beliefs. It was found that there is no significant difference between the two cohorts of trainees in the above-mentioned course.

The teaching practice is a crucial part of the teacher education program. During the field experience program, student-teachers put the theory learnt into practice, and acquire teaching experience in actual school settings. The quality of learning acquired largely depends on the quality of support provided by the Institute and the schools before and during the practice period. Dispoto's study stated that student-teachers experienced conflict and stress during their field experience. The strain to learn to teach may result in feelings of incompetence and lack of confidence, and may affect the attitude, behaviour and performance of the student-teachers. Besides support from the Institute, student-teachers also receive support from teachers (mentors) in the schools where they perform their practice. With reference to the expectations for mentors concluded by Grimmentt and Ratzlaff, mentors need some pre-requisite knowledge and skills, e.g. observation skills, up-dated knowledge on education theories, ability to undertake critical analysis of one's and other people' lesson in order to involving student-teachers in planing and evaluating learning experience, conferring and evaluating their development through regular observation and feedback. Since the establishment of the Hong Kong Institute of Education in 1994, a new form of teaching practice has been introduced in the 2-year full time primary teacher education program, namely the Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS). Co- operating teachers from schools are assigned to student-teachers and perform the functions of the mentors. In a local study student-teachers were found to have lowered the perception of their competence after the teaching practice. Our previous researches revealed that the co-operating teachers (CTs) would like to have more updated knowledge of education theories, teaching strategies, observation and communication skills so as to enhance the learning of the student-teachers. In order to improve the quality

In general, the findings of the research project have shown that the pre-service teachers at the Hong Kong Institute of Education were not very competent in the implementation of civic education as embodied in the "Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools" prepared by the Curriculum Development Council and issued by the Education Department of Hong Kong in 1996. not that they lacked the skills in teaching, but they simply did not know how to transfer the skills into civic education both inside and outside the classrooms. Even worse, a majority of them revealed that they had not read the "Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools" and that they lacked the knowledge of Hong Kong, China and world affairs which are indispensable elements in pedagogical contents. Under such conditions, it would be inconceivable that the student-teachers could develop a positive and pro-active attitude towards civic education. By utilizing the method of documentary analysis and the approach of induction, this paper aims to identify the factors that have accounted for the deficiencies in civic education at tertiary level and explore the ways through which the pre-service teachers' competence and quality in such aspect could be enhanced. It is hoped that the suggested programmes or methods could help equip the pre-service teachers better for coping with the changes that have been taking place in Hong Kong and the challenges that the future world holds in store.

The development of environmental conservation and education in Asia lags far behind the Western World. It appears to the team that education ‘in’ the environment in particular has been lacking, regardless of the fact that it represents one of the three important elements of environmental education (about, in, and for the environment). This is partly due to the fact that environmental studies is a multidisciplinary subject that many in-service teachers find difficulty in locating a set of appropriate teaching materials tailor-made for the local environment. The training workshop will help fill the gap. Instead of adopting materials produced in foreign countries, teachers can make use of the local information from the training to organize good quality educational activities for their students. The teaching materials are designed for in-service teachers/technicians of Liberal Studies, Geography, Science or Environmental Education in secondary schools. The content covered both scientific and technological knowledge, consisting of teaching materials and guides with suggested topics and references demonstrating the standard methods of environmental pollution investigation. It will not only supplement the existing monotonous academic textbooks, but also encourage students’ a self-study outside classroom. From this training workshop, we aim to: (1) promote teaching effectiveness and quality of related courses by providing teaching resources for in-service teachers/technicians in secondary schools; (2) improve learning experience of secondary students; (3)enhance in-service teachers/technicians’ knowledge and understanding of various environmental pollution in Hong Kong; (4) provide practical information of some of the pollution status in Hong Kong for the participants; and (5) provide consultancy and technical supports for in-service teachers/technicians in environmental pollution studies.

The aim of the programme was to deliver a field-based mode of training for teachers in special schools and to set up a school cluster system for teachers to have a platform for an interactive exchange of ideas, resources, services, and expertise among different schools that mutually addressed the needs of children with special needs. During the training period, lectures, observation of demonstrations and cross-site visitations were held. From 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2009, a number of 12 school clusters were organized. Members in a school cluster included lecturers from the institute of education, specialist professionals of the supporting schools and teachers of participating schools. A total of four insittute lecturers and 26 school teachers participated in this programme as trainers. The number of trainees was 101. The responses from participants of supporting and participating schools were very positive. They believed that this mode could enhance the application of new teaching techniques into their own classroom or school settings.
[Copyright © 2010 The Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.]

In this article, the Erasmus Mundus programme in Special Education Needs, with the financial support from the European Commission, run in Europe from 2005-2010, is reported. The discussion will focus especially on the learning in the field of collaborative skills and attitudes that have occurred in the programme. With reference to the feedback of the participants, the features such as practices of internationalization, multicultural understanding, collaboration in learning and reflection in professional practice are significantly noted. In comparison, these insights may exert far-reaching impact to course planning of professional development in special needs at different levels in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2011 The Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.]