PGCE/PGDE in Hong Kong Universities

Hi Asiaxpat members,

I have gone through all the forums and hope to not be repeating any questions in this forum post.

I am a Native English Teacher in a tuition centre at the moment, and would like to make this a career of mine. I am English but I am a permanent resident here in Hong Kong. I have been teaching for 6 years now, but studied a management bachelors degree instead and attempted to pursue a career in that industry. I made the transition to teaching English, teaching full-time for over a year and now want to become a registered teacher. I am able to do a full-time PGDE/PGCE course as I am still young enough to be supported by parents (lucky me!).

I want to apply for the 2017 intake for the PGCE/PGDE programs in Hong Kong. I contacted CUHK and BUHK, however they teach core courses in both Chinese and English. My Chinese reading and writing is terrible, but I speak Chinese perfectly fine, not bad for a person from the UK.

There is HKU and they teach the course in English so that's fine so I will apply to them.

There is OUHK and The Hong Kong University of Education. I haven't heard good things about the courses they offer, and job opportunities upon graduation. However I was wondering, as I don't really have a vast amount of options, should I take the course with them? Since I can't go to CUHK or BUHK...

Additionally, the universities offer Primary and Secondary streams. I would like to teach Secondary in the future, however will I have a better chance getting into the university, as well as getting decent job opportunities upon graduation?

Additionally, there may be an English proficiency test. Is there anyway to prepare for it? (I'm a nervous Nelly).

So just a summary of my queries after all that text^:

Will OUHK and The Hong Kong University of Education be a feasible option to pursue a career in teaching English?
How can I prepare for the English proficiency test?
Should I take the Primary or Secondary stream based on my current education and opportunities for the future?


Thank you guys for taking the time to read the post, and I hope this clears up uncertainties for other future applicants.

A little background of myself it is helps to answer the questions:
English Ethnicity
24 years old
Bachelor in Hospitality Management (3.66 gpa)
Teaching English (tutorial centres, primary schools, secondary schools) for 6 years.
Speak Canto and PTH, but writing and reading is very limited
Able to do both full-time and part-time courses.

I did my PGDE in CUHK and there were a few of them who knew very little Chinese too! I don't think this is a problem.

Hi, There are many students at CU without Chinese capability. However, most of the ones I know are doing BBA and Engineering (not exchange students but these are students who are doing there full 4 years degrees at CU.) and are either HK born or long term HK residents or have come from overseas to study here and are not Chinese. I do not know anyone doing a PG in Education so you may want to approach the relevant faculty and ask the course counsellor to connect with you some current and/or past students with your type of background.

The faculty and counsellors are very helpful at CU.

Hope this helps.

I have also been applying and interviewing for the coming academic year studying PGDE.
So far not so good.

The impression I get is HKU have such a high demand for the course it is near impossible getting on unless you have some big names to drop in their interview. (There also has to be some big internal problems within the campus, if you have read the local news recently you will know the Dean has decided to jump ship only one year before completing his contract.)

With CU I have heard you may turn up to lectures and be told it is being held in Cantonese. I also went to an interview here but again there are so many people wanting to get on the course by the time I had my interview the Interviewers had seen enough after 6 hours of hopefuls and there was nothing I could say to them to raise any awareness of existence. I'm not sure why they don't just raise their class sizes and take in more money. I come from the UK and interviewing for a University course is mind boggling, do they want my money or don't they? Surely they would benefit from more tuition fee.

The next choice is BU and HKIED, these campuses are pretty far from where people live or work and I still have to interview there and sit a written essay to assess English ability. I was born and educated in England, but apparently that doesn't count for anything. I still have to sit and explain theory which HKers are great at as they have had it drummed into them throughout their school years. Whereas we both know you dont learn much English theory at school in England. So again it's really not easy getting on.

Finally we have online courses, all of which are seen as lesser courses compared to on campus study at most local and international schools.

Sorry, this wasn't very useful to you information wise, but sometimes it's nice to know you are not alone in this predicament. It would be great to keep in touch with you and we can let each other know what options are left. Also any other information anyone from a western country who has studied a PGDE in HK could give would be much appreciated.

Hey Badlard, I sent you a private message with my contact info. Look forward to getting in touch!

HKU have just given me admission to the full-time PGDE (Eng Primary) recently. I've done quite a lot of research before applying to these universities so I think I can give you some advice.

Employers (principals) are generally skeptical about the quality of the students who graduate from OUHK. But I don't go along with their view. Anyways, if you have better options, you might not want to apply to it.

Well, The Hong Kong University of Education is better than BU and OUHK in terms of the reputation and the quality of the programme.

From my own experience, if you want to go for the Secondary stream, you might have to perform better in the written test. I've attended a few admission tests and I managed to get through to the second round so I know what you will be tested on. I'm not a native English speaker. If I can do it, so can you.

Feel free to send me a private message for any questions.