Moving to the Next Level
To help serving and prospective teachers cope with changing demands of education, the Institute introduced a self-financed Master of Education (MEd) programme with five specialisations, in early 2005-06. The MEd programme has very quickly established a good reputation among educators, attracting over 300 applications for the upcoming programme.

Apart from providing programmes for pre-service students at the Tai Po main campus, the Institute also offers a wide range of courses for serving teachers at our Town Centre in Tai Kok Tsui. To accommodate this growing demand and to enhance our services, a new Town Centre at Long Beach, also conveniently located in Tai Kok Tsui, was identified. Renovation work in the new Town Centre took place throughout 2005-06 to open for the new academic year. The new Centre is equipped with a full range of tailor-made teaching and learning facilities and the amenities include multi-purpose teaching venues, language laboratories, art and music rooms, IT services and a library. The new Centre will provide an ideal learning environment and will support serving teachers in their ongoing pursuit of professional development.

Graduates to be Proud of
In October 2005, the Institute commissioned the City University of Hong Kong, to conduct an Independent Survey on Teacher Attributes and Teacher Education Programmes in Hong Kong. The survey, believed to be the largest of its kind in the territory, supplements the Institute's Annual Graduate Employment Survey. The results of the Independent Survey provided further testimony to the quality of HKIEd graduates, with highly encouraging comments from principals.

The findings revealed that HKIEd graduates are the most preferred by principals in the primary and early childhood sectors, for their "professionalism" and "work attitude" when compared with graduates from other teacher education providers.

An additional Institute survey conducted among secondary school principals, in the summer of 2006, resulted in a similar outcome. The findings revealed that over 96 percent of secondary school principals ranked the performance of HKIEd graduates as being better than, or on par with, those of other institutions. Amongst this number, 44 percent indicated their preference for HKIEd graduates.

The results of these surveys mirror the data collected in our Annual Graduate Employment Survey. In our latest round of surveys conducted in September to December 2005, 98.3 percent of our 2005 graduates secured employment or were pursuing further studies. For the Institute's first cohort of 64 language education graduates, all of them, (apart from one who is pursuing further studies), had secured employment, with many of them receiving multiple offers in the first quarter of 2005.