Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

PART 2: HONG KONG SAR
99
The Education and Manpower Bureau attempts to control the supply of qualified
teachers by fixing the number of students that recognized universities and the HKIEd
can admit each year. Because these programs are highly subsidized, the bureau has an
interest in underestimating market needs, so there is usually a shortage of qualified
teacher graduates. As a result, a relatively high percentage of teachers in Hong Kong
schools are permitted teachers. In the mid 1990s, even with the stabilized demand
for new teachers and the expansion of teacher education capacity to allow permitted
teachers to obtain their “qualification,” the percentage of permitted teachers was still
15% in primary schools and 25% in secondary schools (Lai, 2006).
A longitudinal study of teachers in the 1990s (Chung & Hung, 2001) showed that of
2,068 new entrants into the teaching force in 1991, only 55% were still teaching in 1999,
a retention rate of about 55%. The study found that initial pre-service education had a
positive impact on retention: those teachers with higher levels of education were more
likely to remain in teaching, as were mathematics and science teachers; English teachers
were the teachers most likely to leave. Also, on-the-job in-service training was the most
effective way of retaining teachers. This factor mainly applied to untrained university
graduates who undertook in-service education to upgrade their teaching status (Chung
& Hung, 2001).
Teacher salaries
Teachers in Hong Kong are relatively well paid. Yue-Ping Chung of the Chinese
University of Hong Kong made special estimates for this study of the mean monthly
incomes from household surveys of teaching and non-teaching professionals as well as
of managers/administrators who had majored in mathematics and science. The surveys
were conducted in 1996 (before the Asian financial crisis) and 2001 (after the crisis and
when GDP per capita had fallen from the highs of 1997).
Tables 29 and 30 and Figures 30 to 33 show that male teaching professionals who were
mathematics and science majors (these individuals tend to be secondary school teachers)
earned almost as much in 1996 as mathematics and science professionals who were not
teachers, and they earned more at higher ages. Mathematics and science teachers also
earned more than managers/administrators. This pattern was less evident for teachers
who had majored in education (primary school teachers).
By 2001, the earnings of managers/administrators who had majored in mathematics
and science had risen relative to other groups, including teachers. Both male and female
managers/administrators earned more than teaching and non-teaching professionals,
but teachers continued to do better economically than non-teaching professionals who
had majored in mathematics and science.
This pattern suggests that teaching, from an economic standpoint, and despite studies
showing that students regard teaching as a low-status profession and that teaching as a
career often attracts lower scoring high school and college students, should be a relatively
attractive career. Moreover, mathematics and science majors who enter secondary
teaching, and even education majors entering primary teaching, are paid relatively high
salaries. The fact that male teachers do well compared to other professions also helps
explain the relatively high proportion of male teachers in Hong Kong (about 45%).