Quality Enhancement Support Scheme (QESS)

Building on the successful experience of the Quality Enhancement Grant Scheme for the academic years 2008/09 – 2010/11, the QESS aims to promote quality enhancement of the self-financing post-secondary sector (the Sector).  QESS is set up under the Self-financing Post-secondary Education Fund to support worthwhile non-works projects or initiatives that help enhance the quality of teaching and learning for students and teachers and the sector as a whole.    FSTE has been successfully granted QESS funding for the following projects:

2019-2022

Promoting Emotional Wellness and Resilience in the Self-financing Tertiary Education Sector (Phase II): Structured Professional Development Programme for Staff (Project ∂WARE 2.0)

Riding on the success of previous project on promoting emotional wellness and resilience of students in the self-financing tertiary education sector, this 3-year project extends the focus to staff in the sector.  It aims at developing and delivering the first sector-wide structured professional development programme, with a view to facilitating staff in the early identification of, handling of, and intervention for students with emotional/mental health needs.  Read more…

2017-2020

∂ware bannerPromoting Emotional Wellness and Resilience in the Self-financing Tertiary Education Sector (Project ∂WARE)

This project, with the self-explanatory project title, aims to promote emotional wellness and resilience in the self-financing tertiary education sector.  Through various genres of activities and training, it envisions to cultivate a positive school atmosphere with heightened awareness, understanding, and open mindset of mental/emotional health.  Read more…

2016-2019

QESS3
The Development of Learning Materials in relation to Chinese as a Second Language for Post-secondary Education (Project NCS)

Project NCS aims to enhance the Chinese proficiency amongst non-Chinese speaking students studying in the self-financed post-secondary sector through the development of learning materials in relation to Chinese as a second language together with an associated online sharing mechanism.  It is the first-ever joint effort in the sector to provide appropriate learning and teaching resources for improving non-Chinese speaking students’ proficiency in Chinese language.  By building up their Chinese language skills, their standards will get closer to the employers’ expectation and thereby becoming more competitive in the society and employment market.

2014-2017

Towards a Sub-degree General Education Framework – Facilitating Credit Recognition and Transfer

In 2011, FSTE was granted a research fund by EDB under QEGS for “Models on Sub-degree General Education Curriculum and Exemplary General Education Courses” in response to the implementation of the New Academic Structure where General Education (GE) components in 4-year undergraduate programmes were enriched.  While different Associate Degree (AD) providers have their own models of GE curriculum and own sets of intended learning outcomes (ILOs), the exemption and transfer practices of GE units amongst degree institutions especially those UGC-funded are diverse.
The previous QEGS project looked into different GE frameworks across institutions regionally and internationally with reference to the requirements of local Common Descriptors and Generic Level Descriptors.  Major achievements included the quality enhancement in GE course development and delivery in sub-degree sector; effective communication with GE departments of UGC-funded institutions with regard to their practices in GE course exemption and recognition for sub-degree sector; increased opportunities of experience sharing among GE practitioners in the sub-degree sector.  All exemplary courses and good practices were collected, compiled and published in General Education Guidebook which is one of the major deliverables of the project.
Building on the success of the previous GE project, this current project aims to:
1.  Further enhance the quality of GE courses in the sub-degree sector in Hong Kong
2.  Continue effective communication between the sub-degree and degree sectors in Hong Kong
3.  Take sub-degree GE further towards the goal of achieving smoother credit recognition by, and articulation to, the degree sector, with a view to facilitating credit recognition and transfer.

2013-2016

Teacher Competency Framework and Related Outcome-based Professional Development Programme for Teachers of Self-financing Post-secondary Education Sector (Project TCF)

Project TCF builds on the strengths of and addresses issues emerged from the QEGS project entitled “Development of Joint Teacher Training and Staff Development Project” awarded to FSTE in 2009 (completed in 2012).   The deliverables of the QEGS project were well received by both administrators and practitioners of the sector.  Feedbacks from various channels reflected the needs of the sector.  It is anticipated that deliverables of Project TCF will include:
1.  A Teacher Competencies Framework for self-financing post-secondary education sector in Hong Kong which contains a number of knowledge and skills dimensions, a progressive ladder within each dimension and deors for each level so that practitioners will know their present positions and the subsequent movement.
2.  A set of exemplary professional development programmes, such as startup programmes for new and potential teachers; structured taught programmes, workshops on development of specific skills; sharing of good practices; teachers’ network of common subjects, etc., to address different training needs of practitioners.
3.  A credit accumulation system across modules of the programme for the certification of participants attending and/or completing respective training modules.
Project TCF ended in August 2016.