The School of Education was established in 1992 to provide opportunities for thousands of in-service teachers in primary and secondary schools to upgrade their qualifications and raise the overall standards of services. The efforts came to fruition after more than a decade when the government’s policy objective of forging an ‘all-trained and all-graduate’ teaching force for Hong Kong’s schools was fulfilled. At that point, the School took the opportunity to offer part-time Bachelor of Education for a large number of non-graduate teachers. It also offered postgraduate studies at master’s and doctoral levels and are welcomed by students.

Hong Kong’s society has been putting more focus on biliteracy and trilingualism. In 1997, the OUHK followed this development, with the School of Education being

renamed as the School of Education and Languages. The School offers a series of courses to strengthen students’ ability in Chinese, Putonghua and English, which help to enhance the Chinese and English proficiency of the education sector. The School aims to develop and nurture students to become teachers in the new generation. In recent years, the OUHK has also offered full-time double-degree programmes for training kindergarten, primary and secondary school teachers. The length of study in these programmes is typically four years as students are taking two summer terms. These flexible arrangements are different from those in other UGC tertiary institutions.

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