The Education & Manpower Bureau Curriculum Development Institute will provide 645 professional development programmes in the 2007-08 school year for 50,000 heads and teachers of secondary and primary schools, and pre-primary institutions.

For primary schools and pre-primary institutions, the bureau has strengthened programmes sharpening teacher understanding and mastery of curriculum planning and implementation, and consolidation of teachers' mastery of effective learning, teaching and assessment strategies to enhance child development and learning.

For secondary schools, the programmes will focus on interfacing with new senior secondary education, especially on understanding and interpreting the curricula, assessing student learning, learning and teaching strategies and enriching knowledge.

The programmes will help the annual staff development plan for schools and individual teachers - a form of support for teachers and schools to sustain reform in basic education and to prepare for the new academic structure to be introduced in 2009.

The planning of the programmes this year has taken on board feedback collected in previous years, and the objectives, contents, delivery modes and duration of the programmes are designed to suit the different needs of teachers.