At the annual Athletic Meet, students strive for the best

High quality intake to new programmes
When it comes to secondary school teachers, our future graduates in the Bed (Languages) typify the quality of students entering the Institute in this and other specialities. In the 2001-02 academic year, 46 students have taken advantage of this new course that meets the current need in Hong Kong for fully qualified teachers of Chinese and English. Twenty students are majoring in Chinese and 26 in English. Of those, five are from mainland universities and two are mature students.

The quality of this intake became evident early in the programme. While two students qualified for the Award of Outstanding Performance in a Programme Year, another 12 achieved results that were only one step away from that level. One of these future language teachers won an inter-varsity Putonghua competition, another was named best speaker in an invitation debate organised by Macau University. The students showed their public spirit by organising a Languages Education Society for their peers and an orientation camp for the next cohort of BEd (Languages) hopefuls.

	The HKIEd Chinese Orchestra

A high level of employability
Keeping track of how our students fare is key to gauging our success and to finding areas in which we can improve. A survey of 2001 full-time pre-service graduates provided encouraging news. Ninety-three per cent of the 1,292 graduates responded. Of them, 91.8 per cent had secured full-time jobs, with only 13 graduates still looking for full-time work at the time of the survey. Of the 82 who opted to pursue further studies, the overwhelming majority were upgrading themselves in our two-year, full-time Bachelor of Education (Honours) (Primary) programme.

Choosing the best prospective teachers
To ensure that students are able to make the transition successfully from studying to becoming valuable members of the teaching community, we need to be sure that we select the best potential students in the first place. Our rigorous and exciting new programmes are attracting high-calibre applicants but even then we must ensure that applicants are committed to the all-round education of the child. Our selection process is meticulous.

	The beautiful campus provides students with inspiration for painting

Apart from their academic strengths, potential students must also be able to prove to us that they have the breadth of character to become teachers with the kind of vision needed in today's society.

We ascertain this through the interview process in which their personal qualities and personal attributes are gauged with an emphasis on care and concern, respect for the individual, ability to work with others, a positive learning attitude, communication skills, critical and creative thinking, enthusiasm for teaching, awareness of current educational and social issues and a willingness to serve the community.