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POLICY EXPRESS · PE-EDB-149 · Education Bureau

Teacher Professionalism and the Practising Certificate

Teacher registration is for life today; a three-year certificate is proposed, and the bill has not yet been introduced.

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2 pages · English and 繁體中文 · Built on the 1134211 Framework · Facts as at 25 October 2026

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PE-HB-175: Shortening the Wait for Public Rental HousingPE-EDB-147: Right-Sizing the School System for a Shrinking CohortPE-CEDB-130: Supporting Mainland Enterprises to Go GlobalPE-CMAB-120: Aligning Rules and Mechanisms across the Greater Bay AreaPE-CSB-125: Civil Service Size, Productivity and Establishment Control

The tension and our thesis

The tension

Government wants every teacher to hold a time-limited certificate so that registration reflects current fitness and training, while principals warn that the same rule could make short-term cover harder to find.

Our thesis

A certificate works if it measures practice, not hours alone, and if its edge rules keep classrooms staffed.

Three policy problems this brief examines

  1. 01The register is not a workforce count
  2. 02Hours become a legal gate, quality is untested
  3. 03Edge cases can shrink the supply

Each problem is developed in three layers: the fact, why it persists, and the consequence for the system.

Three options compared

A

A · Declaration only: renew registration on declarations, no training hours.

B

B · Full regime as proposed: certificate, 150 hours, one rule for all.

C

C · Pilot first: voluntary certificate for a year, legislate later.

The scored comparison, the justified recommendation with its phased measures, the implementation challenges, the stakeholder assessment and the success metrics are in the full brief.

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Both pages, in English and Traditional Chinese: the introduction and background, key figures, the three policy problems, the scored options, the recommendation with its phased measures, the implementation challenges, the stakeholder assessment and the conclusion.

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Facts and figures are checked against primary sources where we could retrieve them. † marks press-only figures. (J) marks IRB judgements. Facts as at 25 Oct 2026.

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