FEHD's Dr Kevin Yung has received a donation of HKD$200,000 to develop an online learning platform for students from poorer families.
The Assistant Professor at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction will work with Principal Chan Free Tutorial World (陈校长免费补习天地), an NGO that offers free one-on-one tutoring for underprivileged students in HK. The project will create an online platform of self-study videos, as well as teaching and learning resources to help both volunteer tutors and students.
Student teachers will review teaching videos for Chinese, English and Mathematics, before suggesting improvements and soliciting feedback from users about their effectiveness.
“This project is an excellent opportunity to engage with the community and contribute to a much-neglected aspect of education,” Dr Yung said. “Private tutoring is common in Asia and around the world. But financially underprivileged students may be disadvantaged. As such, I've collaborated with Principal Chan, who has been helping underprivileged students by giving them the opportunity to receive tutoring for free. This project has further strengthened our collaboration and university-community partnership. It has also expanded my focus of research from fee-paying tutoring to fee-free tutoring.”
The project will be launched this year. It will find out more about underprivileged students’ learning experiences and challenges in mainstream schools. This in turn will inform policymakers of what extra support this group of students need to minimise educational inequalities.
The project is funded by a donation from the Shang Shin Chun Tong Charitable Foundation and Venture Global Limited.