Permanent Secretary for Education & Manpower Fanny Law urges the kindergarten sector to make a concerted effort to put new initiatives in place, to raise the quality of early children education.

Addressing the Council of Non-profit Making Organisations for Pre-primary Education today, Mrs Law stressed the Government attaches great importance to the investment in education.

Noting the Policy Address has put forth new measures emphasing early childhood education, Mrs Law said schools' co-operation is also indispensable in boosting the quality of early children education. Schools should make good use of external forces to change their management culture from "regulatory" to "collaborative", she said.

The Quality Assurance Inspection, introduced in 2000, found most of the schools which underwent inspections in the 2005/06 school year had been able to conduct a comprehensive review. Some of them could even make good use of evaluation findings to formulate school development plans.

Professional development

To help schools conduct self-evaluation and promote professional development, the Education & Manpower Bureau set up a pre-primary education support team in September to forge partnerships with teachers and promote school development, helping them to form a 'learning community" with sustainable development.

"In the future, we will strengthen the quality assurance mechanism for early childhood education, including increasing schools' transparency and stepping up inspection to ensure education quality," Mrs Law said.

Many parents are keen to provide their children with a variety of learning activities. Mrs Law suggested early childhood education workers help parents better understand what quality early childhood education is and give children room to excel.