School graduates’ reasons for choosing pre-school teacher training program: A case study in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Institute of Education as the biggest pre-school teacher education institution in Hong Kong prepares almost all new pre-school teachers. Even though there is complain about inequality between workload and salary from the union of pre-school teachers, the enrolment figure remains stable in the past years. In this research, the researcher aims at investigating the factors motivating school graduates to choose the pre-school teacher education programme. Student teachers’ motivation of entering the teaching profession is associated with their job commitment in the future (Wang & Fwu 2001). Participates are a group of secondary school graduates enroll the pre-school teacher education programmee in HKIED. The results show that their previous experience with children, found of children, expected positive working environment and positive career aspiration are factors explaining why they want to join the profession. The empirical findings can help the teachers to restructure the curriculum both the core curriculum and the hidden curriculum to reinforce their decisions and to strength the attitude of the workforce.