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setting up the learning environment, on the EDB webpage for reference.
The EDB also offers professional advice on the planning and implementation of the curriculum in KGs, through the provision of on-site professional support, the Mainland-Hong Kong Teachers Exchange and Collaboration Programme and the establishment of professional learning communities.
6.3 If it is discovered in QR that the curriculum or homework of a KG does not meet the abilities and developmental needs of children, such as requiring children to complete excessive or very difficult homework, or do mechanical copying exercises, the EDB will require the KG to stop the arrangements and make rectification immediately. The QR report will be uploaded onto the EDB website for reference of the public. According to the observations from QR in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 school years, most KGs made an effort to enhance the element of free exploration in play and placed emphasis on children’s self-directed and free participation in learning, thus providing children with high quality play experiences.
6.4 The EDB renders timely assistance to KGs and parents so as to support children’s continuous learning. During the suspension of face-to-face classes due to the COVID-19 epidemic, KGs had to adopt diversified modes to facilitate children’s learning at home. As such, the EDB issued a letter to all KGs in May 2020 to introduce the principles and strategies in supporting children’s learning at home. A seminar was organised in November 2020 to share the feasible strategies and experience with the sector. Besides, the EDB implemented the Gift Book Scheme and Do It Yourself Handicraft and Learning Package Scheme (Learning Package Scheme) in December 2020. Under the Gift Book Scheme, the EDB provided a subsidy based on the number of eligible students at a rate of $100 for every student in each of the 2020/21 to 2021/22 school years for schools to purchase the books on behalf of their students. As for the Learning Package Scheme, each of the successful applicants receives a grant capped at $50,000 or $80,000, depending on its scale, to implement the home learning programmes.
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Views and discussions
6.5 The sector generally supported the principle and rationale of the Curriculum Guide. As observed during school visits, KGs have made good efforts in improving the school environment so as to facilitate children to learn through play. Regarding the implementation of moral education, quite a number of KGs have included enhancement to moral education as their major concern or priority task, and strengthened the element of moral education in the curriculum. They have made use of stories and experiential activities to integrate moral education into their daily teaching. Most KGs would organise activities on promoting smooth interface between KG and primary education, and help children gain some preliminary ideas about primary school life.
6.6 Based on the consultancy study, principals and teachers are having a better grasp of the content of the Curriculum Guide. Nearly all participating teachers agreed to the notion of “learning through play” and have provided students with more opportunities to play and explore through different measures and strategies, e.g. reduction of homework, extension of non-teacher-driven activities and allocation of more time for free play and free choice activities.
6.7 The KG sector generally appreciated the EDB’s support under the Gift Book Scheme and Learning Package Scheme. As for the way to further prevent KGs from excessive drilling, views of the sector are as below:
(a) Many parents put much emphasis on children’s acquisition of knowledge, particularly those of K3 students, as they are concerned whether their children could adapt to the learning modes in primary schools. Thus, some parents requested KGs to include elements of subject learning and advance the learning at primary schools to KGs. The sector sees the need to enhance parent education, change parents’ mindset, and help parents understand the importance of play in children’s growth and learning as well as the negative impacts of drilling on children’s development.
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(b) Primary schools should understand the abilities of KG children, help smoothen the interface between KG and primary education by helping children gradually adapt to primary school life.
(c) The EDB should produce videos for schools to introduce to parents the objectives of the KG curriculum and the characteristics of children’s development and learning, so as to promote home-school co-operation in fostering healthy and balanced development in children.
Way forward
6.8 The EDB will continue to provide diverse modes of training and school-based support services to help KGs strengthen the leadership in curriculum planning and facilitate the development of school-based curriculum. In order to enhance parents’ understanding on children’s development and to avoid excessive drilling, the EDB will implement the following measures:
(a) To continue to examine if any KGs practised drilling through QR and daily contacts with KGs. Also, when considering whether a KG can stay in the Scheme, the EDB will take into account its overall quality, including its performance in learning and teaching.
(b) To keep reminding primary schools to offer appropriate support to children when they newly transit from KGs to primary schools, including organising activities that involve the participation of both KGs and primary schools, encouraging primary schools not to arrange any dictation or examination for Primary One students in the first school term, etc. It is hoped that concerted efforts will ensure children’s smooth transition from KG to primary education.
(c) To strengthen parent education in KGs, the details of which are set out in paragraphs 6.22 and 6.23 below.
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Supporting students with diverse needs
Background and current situation
6.9 On support to students with special needs, the Government has all along been working through the collaborative efforts of various departments for early identification of children with special needs and early provision of support to them. In general, the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority are responsible for assessment, treatment and referral to rehabilitation services. The Social Welfare Department provides pre-school rehabilitation services for disabled children from new born to aged 6, and helps the families of these children cater for their special needs. The EDB provides training for KG teachers.
6.10 Under the Scheme, we strengthen the support to students with diverse needs through diverse modes. To support children with special needs, the Labour and Welfare Bureau has launched the Pilot Scheme on On-site Pre-school Rehabilitation Services (OPRS) since November 2015.
Multi-disciplinary service teams (comprising occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, clinical/educational psychologists, social workers and special child care workers) provide professional support to children with special needs who are studying in KGs/ kindergarten-cum-child care centres (KG-cum-CCCs). The purpose of the services is to support children attending KGs and KG-cum-CCCs and waiting for subvented pre-school rehabilitation services. The service teams also provide professional support and assistance to parents and KG teachers/child care workers. The Government has regularised the OPRS in October 2018, and significantly increased the number of service places from 3 000 to about 8 000 in the 2020/21 school year, which will be further increased to 10 000 in the 2022/23 school year. In Scheme-KG, the overall requirement in TP ratio has been raised to 1:11 so that teachers could have more rooms for professional collaboration to cater for the diverse needs of students (including those at risk of development delay) and for coordination with the multi-disciplinary service team under OPRS to support students with special needs.
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6.11 On support to NCS students, in the 2017/18 and 2018/19 school years, an additional grant comparable to mid-point of the salary range of one KG teacher was provided to Scheme-KGs admitting eight or more NCS students (about $360,000 and $380,000 in the 2017/18 and 2018/19 school year respectively). With effect from the 2019/20 school year, the grant has been enhanced as a five-tiered grant for Scheme-KGs with subsidies based on the number of NCS students admitted. A KG admitting only one NCS student also receives the grant, and the grant rate for the highest tier is a double of the previous level. In the 2020/21 school year, the grant rate for KGs ranged from approximately $50,000 (tier 1) to
$800,000 (tier 5). With the grant provided by the EDB, KGs employ different strategies to support NCS students, such as employing dedicated teachers or teaching assistants to take care of NCS students, purchasing books and teaching materials, and providing parent education and translation services. Through visits to KGs receiving the grant, the EDB provides schools with professional advice and support, monitors their deployment of the grant, and identifies successful experiences for sharing among KGs.
6.12 To encourage KGs to provide more information to parents of NCS children, the EDB has provided a one-off Website Enhancement Grant to all Scheme-KGs in the 2020/21 school year. A grant of $10,000 has been provided for a school providing basic school information in both Chinese and English on their websites. This should include an introduction to the school, information on admission arrangements, school fees, the school’s support for NCS children, etc. Schools that provide all information on their websites in both Chinese and English are provided with the grant at the rate of $20,000.
Views and discussions
6.13 Stakeholders held the following views on the Government’s support to students with developmental needs and NCS students:
(a) Stakeholders commended the EDB for enhancing the grant to a five-tiered grant to support NCS students starting from the 2019/20 school year, so that KGs admitting a small number of NCS students are also entitled to the additional subsidy.
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(b) The sector opined that the Website Enhancement Grant has helped schools in improving their services and providing more information to parents of NCS children.
(c) Some stakeholders opined that KGs need to work with outside organisations (e.g. providers of social worker services or OPRS).
Hence, it was suggested that designated teachers should be assigned to coordinate the work related to support to students with special needs.
Way forward
6.14 As regards the sector’s view of creating rooms for teachers to coordinate the support for students with special needs, the TP ratio has been enhanced from 1:15 (including the principal) in previous years to 1:11 (not including the principal) under the Scheme. This allows teachers to have more capacity to conduct various professional activities and capitalise on the resources to cater for the diverse needs of students. Collaboration with multi-disciplinary service teams of the OPRS is a vital part. The EDB has also enhanced teacher training and set out training targets. In tandem, the EDB continues to develop evidence-based intervention models and teaching resource packages for KG teachers to cater for children with special needs. On teacher training, starting from the 2018/19 school year, the EDB has been organising Advanced Courses. The programmes, comprising both the Basic and Advanced Courses, cover contents on fundamental knowledge and skills in early identification and intervention, multi-disciplinary collaboration and strategies related to coordination of support services. The EDB will continue to promote an inclusive culture in KGs, and make sustained effort to provide more training for KG teachers for catering for children with special needs. The EDB will review the implementation of the training target and consider the need of further enhancement.
6.15 The EDB will continue to keep in view the progress of the measures to support students with diverse learning needs, and consider introducing appropriate and effective improvement measures as necessary.
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Parent education
Background and current situation
6.16 Parents not only play a crucial role in nurturing their children in their early life, but also serve as the children’s role models. Hence, Scheme-KGs are required to step up parent education to enhance their understanding on children’s developmental needs, their roles in supporting their children, and to share good practices in facilitating healthy growth of children through family support. The EDB has all along encouraged KGs to set up Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) to strengthen connection and establish partnership between parents and schools. The EDB provides the Home-School Co-operation Grants to support KGs in organising activities on home-school co-operation or parent education. The number of Scheme-KGs with PTAs has increased from 268 (accounting for 36% of KGs under the PEVS) before the implementation of the Scheme in the 2016/17 school year to 304 (accounting for 40% of Scheme-KGs) in the 2019/20 school year.
6.17 To strengthen parent education, the EDB rolled out a parent education framework20 for KGs in the 2018/19 school year, which serves as reference for schools in planning their parent education activities. KGs are encouraged to draw reference from the framework in organising school-based or joint school parent education activities. The EDB has also drawn reference from the above framework and commissioned tertiary institutions to organise territory-wide parent education talks from the 2018/19 school year onwards to enhance parents’ understanding of children’s learning characteristics and diversity at KG stage, and promote positive parenting for children’s healthy and happy development.
Moreover, the EDB has, in collaboration with the Department of Health, organised talks to share with parents the knowledge of child development.
20 With the focus on “Roles of parents with children at KG age”, the framework covers three major domains (i.e. (1) Learn more about quality KG education; (2) Understand children’s growth; and (3) Respect children’s uniqueness), and eight themes (i.e. “Choose a quality KG”, “Curriculum promoting children’s balanced development”, “Home-school co-operation”, “Interface between KG and primary education”, “Children’s developmental and learning characteristics”, “Success is not determined at the scratch line”, “Learner diversity of children”, and “Do not compare children with each other”).
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6.18 In February 2018, the EDB launched the Smart Parent Net to provide information on parent education to facilitate parents with children studying in KGs and primary and secondary schools to have easy access to information about supporting children’s physical and mental development.
In June 2021, a new feature, Parent Education Activity Information Hub, was added to the Smart Parent Net, which serves as a one-stop platform to provide parents with information on parent education courses and activities.
6.19 Moreover, the Education Commission set up a Task Force on Home-School Co-operation and Parent Education (Task Force) in December 2017. The report of the Task Force was released in April 2019.
The EDB has fully accepted the recommendations and relevant measures are implemented progressively, among which include:
(a) Doubling the amounts of the Set Up Grant and Annual Grant that each KG may apply21 starting from the 2019/20 school year to encourage KGs to set up PTAs for promoting home-school connection and co-operation.
(b) Doubling the amount of the Subsidy for Home-School operation Activities and the Subsidy for Joint Home-School Co-operation Project22 that KGs could apply annually. The EDB encourages KGs to make use of the additional resources to organise more parent education activities.
(c) Launching a territory-wide “Positive Parent Campaign” to facilitate the public’s understanding about the importance of happy and healthy development of children, enhancing parents’
awareness of positive parenting through a series of publicity activities, and disseminating the message on fostering children’s whole-person development as well as avoiding excessive competition.
21 The amount of Set Up Grant has increased from $5,000 to $10,000, and the amount of Annual Grant has increased from $5,474 in the 2018/19 school year to $11,266 and $11,480 in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 school years respectively.
22 Starting from the 2019/20 school year, the ceiling on these two subsidies has increased from $5,000 to $10,000 and from $10,000 to $20,000 respectively.
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Views and discussions
6.20 The sector recognised the importance of parent education.
However, owing to the small scale and limited human resources, many KGs are unable to actively promote parent education in school. They hoped the EDB could enhance support to KGs in promoting parent education.
6.21 Some parents expressed their observations that learning and teaching activities in KGs have become more diversified, with greater emphasis on learning through play. Notwithstanding their appreciation about the benefits of learning through play, many parents worried that their children might display weak academic performance, which would in turn affect their chance of admission to primary schools, and that children might find it difficult to interface with the primary curriculum smoothly. Some parents considered that the EDB should provide more resources to PTAs for promoting parent education.
Way forward
6.22 To further strengthen KGs’ parent education, the EDB has commissioned a tertiary institution to develop a curriculum framework on parent education (kindergarten). To encourage schools to strengthen school-based parent education, an additional one-off subsidy of $50,000 to $60,000 will be provided to KGs to kick start structured parent education programmes in the 2021/22 school year. In this regard, the EDB will assist in liaison with early childhood education experts, SSBs, tertiary institutions, etc. to help KGs as necessary in the design and delivery of structured parent education programmes.
6.23 The EDB will continue to, by different means of territory-wide parent education talks, videos, booklets, educational activities, etc., raise parents’ awareness about the importance of fostering children’s whole-person development and avoidance of excessive competition.
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