Job Discussion Forums

[tbigdog]

I wish to enter the PNET program, but while doing it I want to get a PGDE while in Hong Kong, Questions are:

Where can you get a PGDE while working PNET
How much does it cost
How long does it normally take to get it
Is it worth the time and money
Would it be better to get my Masters in ED instead?

I have a BS in Bus Admin, a 120 hour TEFL cert, and 5 years esl teaching experience. Due to the lack of/shortage of teachers is it possible to land a SNET position ( I do not have a teaching licence or cert but I do have 2yrs experence ant this age level.)

[Hoosier]

You can take the PGDE program at University of Hong Kong:-
http://www.hku.hk/education/programme/pgde_all.htm

I know many NETS teachers who are teaching and studying PDGE part-time. However, for the sake of your sanity, please avoid the major of Primary English. Anyway, the PGDE is good for teaching both primary and secondary English, even if you major in Secondary English.

[Hkguy]

I took the programme. PGDE with a Primary English Major. I agree with what Hoosier said about the major. I was in the first cohort. There used to be 2 tutors, now there is only one. I felt the course was very theoretical and not very practical. Also there was some confusion and mix ups with scheduling and what was to be learnt during the Self-directed learning sessions. Perhaps it was because it was the first cohort, maybe now it's better.

If I were you I would avoid the primary strand and go for the secondary English major. If you want to know more PM me.

[jammish]

Why is it that the Hong Kong PGDE cannot be used in any other country, yet the PGCE from the UK is acceptable in HK?

[anninhk]

I can only speak for primary teachers but it would be virtually impossible for a primary teacher from Hong Kong to teach in the UK! The system of education in the primary sector is more like secondary teaching in England. Teachers would not have the skills to take a class for a whole day, let alone know how to actually teach them anything! How would they cope without a microphone and a textbook?

[Hoosier]

Well, I belong to the second batch of PGDE (Primary English) students. Can't say that the program has improved and the tutor is a nightmare. Thank goodness I'm graduating. I can't imagine how the current 1st year PGDE students are coping with the tutor.

[lambada]

Hi
I can't comment on the PDGE (Primary English) but I am doing a PGCE at in Australia by distance and it is really good. 2 years p/t. You have some of the leading lights in Primary Education teaching up to date theories and you really get to learn about diversity, equity, socio cultural critiques etc etc. It's valid in Oz and the UK (probably other places too). It's hard work. I found my Masters easier! You do have to do about 3 months practical teaching (at some point within a certain number of years in an Oz school) and you would have to have police clearance but it's a seriously useful qualification. This is it's first year by distance (except for the practical grrrr) so there have been a few teething problems but I can't recommend it highly enough. ie It's a great course. PM anyone if you want more details.

[lambada]

Sorry about the typos I hope no one pm'd anyone.

[11:59]

[hkteach]

You forgot to mention the breakfast which they either bring to school (after buying it somewhere on their way from home) or which they have delivered from one of the local foodshops which they ring after their arrival at school.
So those of us who start work straight away, take only 15 or 20 minutes for lunch and don't have naps are invariably regarded as not as hardworking as the local teachers.

That word 'hardworking' is a real irony here. It means to be at work for 10-12 hours a day and sometimes come in on Saturdays. It means teachers who are chronically tired and having little time for family or leisure pursuits. It means spending half the weekend sleeping.

It's considered such a virtue to be at work all this time, even though for teachers, the output consists mainly of sitting at one's desk correcting endless piles of exercise books - mainly written answers to textbook exercises)
This is the kind of busywork that doesn't need a teaching qualification and as I've looked around my staffroom and witnessed everyone busily engaged in marking, I've estimated how many hundreds of teacher hours per week are spent on this - 4 hours a day X 5 days X 50 teachers. 1000 hours (conservative estimate) Imagine if this 1000 hours could be diverted to something meaningful - like further training, curriculum development or even have teachers work 8 hour days!!

Trying to get locals to work smarter, not harder, is a feat doomed to failure as they really believe that working longer means they're doing a better job than someone who leaves earlier. It's a cultural thing.
It even appears in the list of adjectives in the P2 textbook e.g. "Mary is my friend. She is tall and hardworking. Tom is short and lazy" So this concept of work is taught at an early age and espoused as such a positive attribute that by the time one enters the workforce, it's embedded and it isn't going to change any time soon.

[11:59]

Yes, I had neglected to mention their breakfast (usually a portion of noodles in soup. You know it is their breakfast noodles in soup as it has a fried egg on the top, their lunchtime portion of noodles in soup doesn't).

Anyway, yes, they cannot distinguish between activity and productivity, or quality and quantity (and in fact I personally believe that they take great delight in purposefully blurring these distinctions). I actually know of one local teacher who swears blind that she and the rest of the teaching staff have been told by their principal (unofficially of course) that they are not permitted to leave the school premises until she (the principal) does. As if that wasn't ridiculous enough already (number 1 principals with thirty years of experience are on around between $70,000 and $80,000 HK per month on the master point pay scale whilst many of the young local teachers are on as little as $14,000, and principals, one would have thought, have vastly more responsibility than basic teachers and so one would expect that they would have to occasionally stay longer), she often takes pride in pretending to casually peruse a broad sheet newspaper in the early evening, usually from around 6.30pm to 7.30pm. After that she does the staff room 'check' which involves her going around with her digital camera taking pictures of teachers� desks awarding merits or demerits to teachers as she goes according to the state of their workspace. One thing she awards points for apparently is 'symmetry'. She hates teachers who have an 'uneven' desk, that is, one with more textbooks/mountains of papers on one side than the other! If a teacher racks up 10 such demerits they have a 'detention' on Saturday, or, sometimes, Sunday. No, this is not education in the Dark Ages, this is Hong Kong in 2007! The same teacher openly confesses that, as she would normally complete all her work and discharge all her responsibilities by, say, 4pm or 5pm, in order to save herself getting bored by sitting there for 3 or 4 hours with nothing to do, she purposefully takes her time with her work so that she has something to do in the time she has to sit there waiting for the principal to leave! But, as the principal is of course unmarried, doesn't have a boyfriend, does not have any hobbies, interests, or commitments outside of work, does not have any chores to do (the maid does them all), all she has to go home to is a ridiculous little rat-like substitute child poodle, and that is hardly a great incentive to return home, and thus is often there till around 9pm!

Like most if not all things in HK, this is just a game, and can be succinctly captured by a game-like analysis. You see, whilst it's all very well and good going on about � and striving (or purporting to strive) for � good, constructive, well-planned, student-centred lessons in which the students actually learn something (information and/or skills), these notions and concepts are quite vague and nebulous, and so are extremely (if not practically impossible) to actually measure in any truly objective, non-self-referential sense. However, time spent at a desk (whether it be eating or marking or sleeping or babbling away into a mobile phone) is highly quantifiable. Indeed, it lends itself to this sort of analysis very well. It is easier to count, measure, and gauge amount of time spent at work than it is to calculate student progress (claims that the absurd exams in HK do indeed give an insight into this realm notwithstanding). For the former a punch-in and punch-out card system alone suffices, but a solution to the latter is more challenging. So, they concentrate on the time spent at work in order to convince themselves that they are doing a good/worthy/commendable job. When the students fail it is because they are lazy (or, alternatively, because they are Mainland immigrants), not because both the teachers and their teaching methodologies are utter crap. I don't think I have ever seen anything other than chalk-and-talk-style lessons, or rather, given that they without fail employ a microphone, chalk-and-shout lessons. Many local teachers simply sit at the front of the class and read from the textbook, telling the kids what to underline as they go. Inspiring!

Another problem, of course, and one which is frequently overlooked, is that the local teachers in the local system are, by definition, success stories of the very system that's rotten to the core in the very first place, so of course it is going to be self-perpetuating! (Well, I'm a teacher so it worked for me when I was a student so what was good enough for me is going to be good enough for them'.)

[tbigdog]

Hello the topic is PGDE. Let's all get back on the topic,PLEASE. How about some answers.

[Hkguy]

You can do a PGDE in HK, but if you haven't lived here for 3 years you'll pay international student fees. Local is like $42,000 HKD International $80,000 for the two year part time programme. For the same money you could do a distance MA/Med from Australia and then get a Uni job in Korea, or elsewhere.

Also you should come here and see if you like it before spending all that money and time because the cert may not be useful if later you go back to your home country.

I think you should be sure you are a PNET before applying for a graduate prog, actually this year it is already too late. With your qualifications, and lack thereof, you will be one of the last considered for a job in the scheme. SNET you need an English degree and teaching degree. Believe it or not even with the additional qualification requirements there is not really a shortage of SNETs as you said.

Sorry if this sounds negative.... but I'm tellin' you like it is...

[lyndon98]

Two points I can add.

HKU will not charge you 80K unless you're on a student visa, if your here on a working and therefore on a working visa it's 40K.

If you're in the net program and studying for a PGDE you will be a Pnet in which case you unfortunately have no choice but to do the primary major. They will only let you do secondary if you're working in a secondary school. Catch 22.