Milestones in the Development of Educational Psychology in Hong Kong

 

Year	Milestones
1959	The government set up a special education section in the Education Department.
1968	Department of Psychology was established in the University of Hong Kong.
1968	The Hong Kong Psychological Society was founded.
1978	The government started providing nine years of free and universal basic education.
1981	Standardization of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children with Hong Kong norm was completed.
1981	A local training program for educational psychologists was set up in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong.
1982	Educational Psychologists in the Education Department started delivering assessment service to students in lower primary levels in response to an early identification program.
1986	School-based psychological services were launched in special schools run by NGOs.
1987	The Division of Educational Psychology, a professional organization in educational psychology, was set up under the Hong Kong Psychological Society.
1991	The Hong Kong Psychological Society published a code of ethics for the profession.
1994	School-based psychological services were extended to regular secondary schools.
1994	Society-based registration of psychologists was launched. On a voluntary basis, educational psychologists could register with the Registration Board of the Hong Kong Psychological Society.
1997	The government launched the pilot project “Whole School Approach” to integration.
1998	The Hong Kong Psychological Society set up a working group for the preparation of statutory registration of psychologists in Hong Kong.
2000	Development of the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing was completed.
2000	The Division of Educational Psychology revised its rules to restrict its membership to the psychologists who had professional training in educational psychology.
2001	The government launched a large-scale reform in education.
2002	School-based educational psychological services were extended to regular primary schools.
2006	The government conducted a critical review of the services and decided to expand school-based psychological services to all primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong.
2007	Development of the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing for Junior Secondary School Students was completed.
2009	In response to the expansion of services, a second training program for educational psychologists was set up in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
2010	Standardization of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (Hong Kong) was completed.
2011	The Division of Educational Psychology initiated a voluntary continuing education record system for its members.
2016	All government and aided primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong are covered by school-based educational psychology services.
2016	EDB started to provide enhanced school-based educational psychology service (EP to school ratio 1:4)  to government and aided schools with a large number of students with special educational needs progressively from the 2016/17 school year.

*Adapted from Lam, S. F. (2005). The growth and development of school psychology in Hong Kong. In C. L. Frisby & C. Reynolds (Eds.), Comprehensive Handbook of Multicultural School Psychology (pp.1107-1127). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons