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 Hong Kong, as a result of an education reform, the School Management Initiative (SMI), which started in 1991, formally introduced a teacher appraisal system to the schools. Whereas some criteria for teacher appraisal have been set up, there has not been any clear guideline as to who is going to use them to appraise whom. Addressing this issue, this chapter is based on two recent studies on the purpose of teacher appraisal and approaches for formative and summative appraisal. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for implementing a teacher appraisal system for achieving formative and summative purposes, paying special attention to the roles of appraisers and appraisees as well as relationship between appraisal and professional development.
[Copyright © 2005 Nova Science Publishers.]

Though the notion of a mentor or cooperating teacher in initial teacher education has been implemented in other countries for many years (Haberman, 1971; Spillane & Levenson, 1976), it was first attempted in initial primary teacher education in Hong Kong only in 1994. The present study aims to investigate this new attempt by the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) to foster supporting relationships in teacher education. The paper focuses on the Cooperating Teacher Scheme (CTS) as a learning experience for student-teachers and the different roles of the school, cooperating teachers, and HKIEd lecturers. The study includes a quantitative component and a qualitative component. Eighty schools were selected randomly from a list of 130 schools participating in the Scheme in 1995-96. Four agents, viz. school heads, co-operating teachers, lecturers and student-teachers involved in the CTS were invited to complete a questionnaire and representatives from each category were interviewed. The findings consider student-teachers' learning as well as varying perceptions of the roles of the four agents in the scheme. Based on the findings, implications of the CTS in initial and further teacher education as well as the collaboration between schools and the Institute are drawn.
[Copyright © 1998 Routledge.]

This paper reports some preliminary findings of a needs assessment exercise conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education for thirteen Hong Kong primary schools towards the end of the British rule. The thirteen schools are members of a school-institute collaborative project and the needs assessment results are used as the basis for follow-up development programmes. The findings indicate that there are challenges faced by schools and that school heads and teachers perceive diverse and common needs for school development. This study provides empirical evidence for school-institute collaboration in school development and research activities.
本文報導在香港回歸前一份有關十三所小學發展需求的初步分析報告。該十三所學校屬教院「院校合作計劃」成員，調查由香港教育學院請師主持，而調查的目的，在方便成員學校作個別學校發展的根據。調查發現：個別學校固然面對不同的發展需要，而校長和老師，對學校發展的看法，亦有差異。調查也顯示了教院和學校在學校發展和學術研究方面合作的可能性。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]