Recruiting and preparing a quality teaching force: A study of the policy, institutional and structural contexts of initial teacher education in Hong Kong

This paper examines the recruitment and preparation of a quality teaching force for primary and secondary education in Hong Kong. Salaries, career structure and opportunities, qualifications and training requirements for teachers are parameters that affect who are attracted to and who can enter teaching. Student admission measures of ITE programmes in the higher education policy context set the scene for entry into teacher preparation programmes. The preparation of teachers can be examined in the policy and institutional contexts of higher education and the structural alternatives of concurrent, consecutive models and alternative routes to ITE. The concepts "financial capital" and "social capital" of the "Alignment model” (Caldwell and Spinks, 2008) will be used to examine the above-mentioned parameters in the recruitment and preparation of teachers. "Financial capital" in the form of financial resources mainly from the government influence teachers' salaries, career structure and opportunities, funding of ITE programmes in higher education, and financial incentives for candidates to join selected teacher preparation programmes. Policy executive and advisory bodies, political groups like teachers' union, teacher education providers in higher education are the various stakeholder groups constituting the "social capital" that shape the policy, institutional and structural contexts of ITE. The analysis of the roles of these stakeholder groups sets the platform for further study of the aims and curriculum of ITE programmes, as well as the translation of policies into practice in the recruitment and preparation of a quality teaching force in Hong Kong.