The Education & Manpower Bureau will hold two days of professional interviews to help surplus teachers of aided primary schools secure teaching posts.

Interviews will be arranged this week for representatives from school sponsoring bodies and the education profession to make assessment of the various aspects of the surplus teachers. Suitable candidates will then be recommended to school authorities, Deputy Secretary for Education & Manpower Cheng Yan-chee said.

Schools should offer vacant teaching posts to those surplus teachers who possess expertise in the education profession, subject knowledge, application and communication skills, and have commitment to education, he said.

The professional interviews will be held on Wednesday and Thursday. School sponsoring bodies and Education & Manpower sstaff will make impartial and fair recommendations to school authorities.

Mr Cheng reiterated that the Bureau had all along been making every effort to assist surplus teachers in securing another teaching post as soon as possible.

School sponsoring bodies that have more than one school have been asked to re-deploy surplus teachers to fill vacancies in other schools and to make information about job openings available on the internet.

They should also have a preferential treatment period in which surplus teachers are given the priority to apply directly to schools, arrange group recruitment interviews and encourage job sharing.

Of the 542 surplus teachers of aided primary schools, more than 300 have succeeded in securing another teaching post so far this year. To date, there are more than 200 primary school teaching posts available. The Education & Manpower Bureau will continue to liaise with the schools concerned to alleviate the problem of surplus teachers. Meanwhile, schools with a few surplus teachers have been urged to tackle the problem by adopting job-sharing arrangements on a voluntary basis.

Mr Cheng said that the resolution of this problem depended heavily on the concerted effort of the education profession. Schools, in particular, must give due consideration to suitable surplus teachers in employing teaching staff.

Meanwhile, the bureau is exploring possible ways to help surplus teachers to upgrade their professional standards so as to enhance their competitiveness in the teaching profession.

The Bureau has yet to fix the expiry date of the preferential treatment period for surplus teachers.