Having just returned from doing some fabulous and well-received training in Nanjing China, it saddens me to come back to Hong Kong and again have to try to find other things to do to pay rent. I am not aware of what it is like in other parts of the world but here in Hong Kong pedagogically focussed training on the use of technology for learning is still seen as a luxury or an add-on for schools and not something that is connected to the day to day business of schools.

This is not just my opinion, the two teachers I travelled with are both incredibly experienced teachers who are passionate about the effective use of IT for learning and they are also tutoring and doing things other than working with teachers because no school will pay them for their services.

In my case, I have a wife who is busy working so that I can donate my time to schools and the Education Bureau of Hong Kong who is very grateful. They have written to me recently to indicate that they appreciate my efforts with workshops of 20+ teachers very much but cannot pay me more than an hourly rate that is less than I could make tutoring 1:1. In normal circumstances I would say that I may not be well received by the teachers but every workshop is evaluated and all of them have the highest possible rating from the teachers. It is just that the community here seems to think that the workshops I am doing on integrating 21st Century Learning Skills across the Curriculum are about as important as a workshop on teaching badminton as an extra-curricular activity!

This is quite sad when you consider that I have just read Will Richardson’s excellent post What Do We Know About Our Kids’ Futures? Really.  It makes me wonder how we get the message to the community that ICT is not just an add-on or a activity like juggling that we may or may not choose to incorporate into our teaching but an essential skill that our kids must have if they expect to live, work and reach their full potential in a flattened world.

Is Hong Kong the only place left on the planet where even the government has not realised the imporatance of ICT in learning beyond publishing a couple of papers and giving meagre grants that only serve to maintain a very basic level of support for IT in schools?

Are there other places where consultants with Higher Degrees in the Pedagogically Sound use of ICT for learning and 25 years of classroom experience cannot find schools who are willing to invite them in to work with staff in spite of letters, emails, personal visits, etc. offering workshops even at no cost?

Hong Kong worries that it might be less competitive in the future given the way that cities like Shanghai are doing all that they can to take business away from the SAR. They would do well to consider the need to try to change their schools from the very traditional organisations with classes of 40 children sitting in rows and worshipping the holy texts that prepare them for a cram and regurgitate exam to the sort of schools that encourage creativity. A hard challenge indeed!