About 90% of English and Putonghua teachers have attained the Language Proficiency Requirement, the Education & Manpower Bureau says. The figure represents 10,838 of the 12,382 English language teachers and 5,234 of the 5,891 Putonghua teachers.

By the end of the 2005-06 school year, the vast majority of schools will have an adequate number of teachers meeting the language proficiency requirement, while only a few schools will need to employ one to two new English teachers for the coming year.

With 266 prospective English teachers expected to graduate from local teacher education institutes, there will be an adequate number available for appointment.

From September, all serving English and Putonghua teachers must attain the Language Proficiency Requirement.

Assessment results posted

The Examinations & Assessment Authority today posted results of the March Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers. More than 2,000 candidates sat for the English papers while 1,800 did Putonghua. Of them, 1,196 (57.8%) were self-claimed English language teachers and 925 (51.4%) were self-claimed Putonghua teachers.

About 74.4% of self-claimed English teachers have acquired the basic requirement in reading, with 29.7% of candidates attaining the basic requirement in English speaking, 60.3% in listening and 38.4% in writing.

For Putonghua, 40.8% of self-claimed teachers attained the basic requirement in Pinyin, 32.9% in speaking and 44.1% in listening and recognition.

Those who do not receive their results by Wednesday should contact the authority on 2239 2771.

Rechecking results

Applications for the rechecking of results will be accepted until May 30. Candidates will be informed of their appeal results by June 26.

For teachers who cannot meet the requirement by August 31 but intend to resume teaching the language subjects afterwards, they can still do so through exemption or assessment.