"Talent scrambling" has become a recent social issue in Hong Kong, and the education sector has also been deeply affected.
According to estimates from the "Secondary School Profile", in the last four school years (2019/20 to 2022/23 school year), the number of senior teachers in Hong Kong has decreased by about 1,500, and some secondary schools even advertised recruitment on the day before the start of this school year (2022/23). The hired teacher takes office the next day.
The chairwoman of the Subsidized Secondary Schools Council, Li Yiying, took office at the end of last year. In an interview with "01 Education", she agreed that it has been difficult to recruit manpower in recent years. In addition to the impact of immigration and the epidemic, the aging population and teacher transfers are also one of the reasons.
In this regard, she proposed 4 methods for reference by colleagues in the education sector to reduce the impact of recruitment difficulties on schools.
Li Yiying, the principal of the middle school, took office as the chairperson of the Council of Subsidized Secondary Schools in late November last year. She mentioned in an interview that in recent years there has indeed been a problem of recruitment difficulties.
(Photo by Lin Aiyi)
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Principal Li explained that in recent years, more teachers have retired or chose to retire early, and some teachers have changed careers, resulting in an increase in vacancies.
She gave an example that it is currently difficult to recruit English, IT and home economics teachers, among which IT teachers are the most obvious, because some current teachers will choose to return to the industry to find better development opportunities.
However, Principal Li added that it is not a recent event that schools find it difficult to recruit workers, because a few years ago, schools “had a lot of difficulty recruiting workers.” He believes that different periods have different difficulties in recruiting workers, and the impact is not limited to the education sector.
Principal Li Yiying said that among different subjects, IT teachers are more difficult to find, and many current teachers choose to return to the IT field.
(Photo by Lin Aiyi)
4 ways to alleviate the difficulty of hiring people and encourage schools to do a good job in knowledge management
It is a fact that it is difficult to recruit people, but in addition to students, the school also needs teachers to operate.
In view of this, President Li also proposed four methods for reference by the academic community to deal with recruitment problems, including "establishing a knowledge management system", "guiding and communicating with new colleagues", "discovering colleagues' expertise and skills" and "early recruitment Start the recruitment process".
Taking the knowledge management system as an example, she pointed out that schools should have different tool kits, guidelines, schedules and letters in terms of teaching, management and planning.
As long as the school does a good job in relevant knowledge management, even if a new colleague joins the job, he can use the reference documents to get started quickly, without having to start from scratch.
Secondly, she suggested that after the school leadership hires new teachers, they should provide more coaching and communication in different aspects, because early guidance of new teachers can accelerate growth, improve self-confidence and centripetal force to the school, and it is easier for the leadership to retain talent.
Principal Li Yiying suggested that the education sector should do a good job in knowledge management, so that new teachers can get started faster.
(Photo by Lin Aiyi)
In addition, it is to discover the expertise and skills of colleagues and provide them with a development stage.
Principal Li believes that if the school leadership understands the interests and talents of the staff and allows them to develop their strengths, they can find job satisfaction and a sense of success for them and help the school develop.
Finally, she also reminded the school to recruit as early as possible, especially for the vacancies that are known to appear, it should be "confirmed earlier and recruited earlier", so as not to complete the recruitment before the start of the semester, which will increase the pressure.
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