The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented challenge to global education. It has changed how many of us, especially our children, learn and gain valuable insights into parenting needs concerning online learning, and digital literacy is more important than ever. However, the digital divide and educational equity have been sharpened amidst the ongoing pandemic; people without access to Information and Communications Technologies are even more disadvantaged than before. In Hong Kong, remote learning has increased exponentially since the outbreak in early 2020, and it has been continued under the “new normal”- which students and educators need to manage and integrate technology into their everyday teaching and learning cycle. When it is specifically essential to ensure equal and inclusive access to remote learning for students, parental involvement should arouse more prominent attention. The emerging problem has been shifting from the opportunity of access to technology to digitally illiterate parents. Hence, this paper will discuss the long-lasting issue between the digital divide and education inequality in Hong Kong, and recommend bridging the digital divide should focus more on nurturing parental digital citizenship and literacy so they can appropriately facilitate the co-learning process with their children in this “new normal” era effectively. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Hong Kong has been regarded as one of the strong examination-driven systems worldwide. Under the current education system, local secondary school students have to sit for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) at the end of Grade 12. Although the continuing assessment reform since 2000 tried to reduce the number of high-stakes examinations for secondary school students (from two to one at the end of the six-year secondary education), it remained a high-stakes public examination because the examination results usually have a significant influence on learners’ future pathways, including further education and employment. In respect of the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, many international public examinations have been tried to be called off, but the Hong Kong government did persist in moving ahead with HKDSE. This aroused criticisms about whether the government has taken students’ well-being as a top priority because the annual survey on DSE students’ stress recorded the highest levels in 2020, 2021 and 2022. In this paper, the positioning and myth of HKDSE and its tie to Confucian philosophy will be examined. Students’ well-being is also discussed regarding rescheduling the examination and the impacts on the mental health of all DSE students, notwithstanding the challenges that can bring to any successful outcomes. It is hoped to urge mental health education and promotion could be carried out systematically to improve its effectiveness. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

In Hong Kong, STEM education has become timely only since 2016 when the government launched the related policy initiatives which impacted the education practices substantially. Particularly, learning in STEM domains has often consisted of memorization of facts devoid of deep connection, separated from life and often failing to integrate the STEM disciplines. Hence, STEM learning is urged to take place in an environment with more attention to different modes of communicating and meaning making. Individuals are required to make meaning and find ways to create personal connections to deeply internalize this knowledge. The investigations, sense-making, creativity, representation and communication of STEM-related ideas are all conducted and connected with human implications of meaningfulness. In this connection, this paper will report the study based on constructivist narrative approach (as cross-case studies) of 3 pre-service teachers majoring in STEM-based programme at teacher training institutes in Hong Kong and 3 in-service STEM teachers. The empirical study will purpose to address three research questions within STEM professional teacher identity perspective: (1) What STEM teacher should be look like and mean to them? (2) What are the factors which construct the STEM teacher identity? (3) What are the needs for professional training of STEM teachers and implications for teacher education? Empirical findings from this study will inform the implications on the context of STEM teacher identity, career and life planning education with STEM-related career aspirations and the professionalism growth of STEM teacher in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.