The Government has placed high hopes on creating Hong Kong as an education hub on the one hand, while seeking to encourage local tertiary institutions to expand their students' profiles through "internationalisation" on the other. What is your view and what role can HKIEd play?

The best scenario for "internationalisation" is to have a two-way outgoing and incoming student exchange. When our students go overseas, it produces effects that cannot be found locally at the campus. The different cultural and social contexts are eye-openers for student teachers. They learn about different teacher education programmes elsewhere and return with new insights. Such educational experiences outside of Hong Kong carry profound implications for young teachers.

When we talk about "internationalisation" for incoming non-local students, we have to look at it from the context of teacher education providers like the Faculty or School of Education within universities. Against this background, we have a good proportion of non-local students, who are well received by our culturally curious, friendly and supportive local students. This allows both sides to have the opportunities to be exposed to an entirely different culture. My point can perhaps be best illustrated by quoting the Graduate English Tutor Scheme (GETS). Introduced by the Institute this year, GETS tutors are mostly non-Chinese speaking overseas graduates who come to HKIEd to assist in non-formal teaching and extra-curricular activities. Being similar in age, we find that both the GETS tutors and our students cherish the opportunities to come into close contact with each other and learn the language.

The success of the upcoming education reform hinges a great deal on the quality of our teachers. What has HKIEd done to prepare our student teachers for the "3-3-4" reform?

Under the "3-3-4" reform, more students, including those who are less academically oriented, will continue to study to the level of Secondary Six. Consequently teachers will have to face a more diverse student profile, and must be equipped with the generic skills to cope with the changes. We have enhanced our curricula to ensure that our prospective teachers will receive a solid general education and develop the skills to support all pupils. According to school principals, our graduates are committed, compassionate, good team players, willing to change and readily fit into the school environment. As such, they should be capable of taking the education reform forward. After all, the essence of the reform is not to focus only on the top 20 percent of academic achievers who have the opportunities to receive publicly-funded tertiary education, but also to help the other 80 percent to have the opportunities to experience success in school and develop their potential.