Thank You Address by Dr Simon Ip Sik-on

It was in early 1993 when I received a telephone call from the then Secretary for Education and Manpower who asked me if I would be willing to help set up the Institute. At that time, teachers in Hong Kong did not have to be graduates. Nor did they need to have professional training. Programmes offered by the then Colleges of Education only led to Certificates in Education at the sub-degree level. It would be the aim of the Institute, based on the recommendations of the Education Commission Report No.5, to become a tertiary level facility dedicated to producing professionally trained graduate teachers.