Letters | Hong Kong teacher misconduct exposes gaps in training system

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I am writing to express my concern over recent school-related misconduct, including a principal swearing at security guards, a coach slapping a student, and a teacher carrying a female student like a bride. As a teacher with experience of both pre-service and in-service professional development courses, I urge universities and the Education Bureau to review teacher professional development programmes so that educators are better prepared to safeguard students’ safety and well-being.

Currently, pre-service teachers are required to attend university courses related to professionalism in Hong Kong government-recognised teacher training programmes, while in-service teachers are required to complete 150 training hours of continuous professional development every three years. Having taken both types of courses myself, I would like to highlight areas for improvement in them.

First, courses should be more practical to meet teachers’ dynamic demands. For example, alongside theoretical input, they can explain in-depth the Education Bureau’s 2022 Guidelines on Teachers’ Professional Conduct and the newly introduced Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance, as well as provide case studies on how to handle demanding cases professionally and according to the law. Consequently, teachers might better grasp and apply expected behaviour to safeguard student welfare.

Furthermore, training must not be merely performative. Instead of holding teachers accountable through the measurement of training hours, trainers should support teachers in identifying the areas for their development and reflecting on how they might apply professional standards in practice. When teachers have greater agency over their learning, they are more likely to respond more appropriately in their own contexts and reduce the risk of misconduct.

Teacher misconduct can have irreversible impact on students’ learning and development, ranging from physical injury to psychological trauma. I urge the authorities to reform teacher professional development to better protect our future generations.

Rachel Wong, Pok Fu Lam

Chongqing animal abuse case must spark law change

Reports that a man surnamed Li allegedly adopted rescued dogs by posing as an animal advocate to abuse them and sell videos of the abuse online have rightly horrified the public and led to renewed calls for anti-cruelty laws in China. The disturbing injuries reportedly found on one surviving dog – including head and lung trauma and an intentionally cut tail – underscore the urgent need for action in this case and to prevent others like it.

Large groups of protesters gathered to demand justice for these dogs, and the overwhelming response on social media shows widespread support for animal protection statutes. Chongqing authorities have detained Li for throwing objects from a height and vandalism, and that is a vital first step. But since China lags far behind the rest of the world in lacking a single law prohibiting cruelty to animals, it’s unclear what more officials can do. Without meaningful legal protections, animals remain dangerously vulnerable, and abusers escape punishment.

This case should be a turning point. China needs strong anti-cruelty legislation to help prevent such horrific abuse and ensure that those who harm animals are held accountable.

Jason Baker, president, Peta Asia

Asia’s power grids must adapt now to global warming

Across Asia, power systems are undergoing a climate stress test. An already warmer climate, further intensified by El Nino, is driving extreme heatwaves that push electricity demand to records while testing the resilience of power supply.

This is happening just as Asia’s grids are undergoing a major redesign. China is building a “new type power system”, Southeast Asia is reviving regional power connectivity, and India is fast-tracking its initiative for green energy corridors.

Yet, these major efforts primarily target variability arising within the power system itself: renewables, distributed generation and electrification. Asia’s climate stress test reveals another source of variability: volatility imposed by the external environment.

Climate adaptation must become a core design requirement for future-ready grids. Even in a world in which global warming is restricted to within 1.5 degrees Celsius, Asia faces weather extremes beyond what much of today’s infrastructure was built to withstand.

While utilities have begun asset-level hardening – reinforcing substations, building flood barriers and undergrounding cables – this is not enough. A power system is not a collection of isolated assets. It is an interconnected ecosystem, deeply linked to transport, water and telecommunications networks.

A heatwave can raise cooling demand while simultaneously pushing transformers, transmission lines and power plants closer to their operating limits. It can also affect telecommunications facilities that depend on reliable cooling, thereby weakening the communications needed for grid control, outage response and repair coordination.

In this context, resilience requires system-level adaptation. Planners need to identify hidden vulnerabilities, anticipate cascading failures, and assess which investments offer the greatest resilience.

The challenge is not simply a lack of data or analytical tools. Climate projections, grid data, hydrological models and demand information often exist, although imperfectly. However, they are often owned by different institutions, used for different purposes, and not designed to work together.

This is where artificial intelligence can help. Its value lies in connection: harmonising messy data sets, linking models built on different assumptions, and stress-testing scenarios to reveal cascading risks and investment trade-offs. Used well, AI can raise the ceiling of what existing data and analytical capabilities can achieve together.

Dr Muyi Yang, senior energy analyst, Asia, Ember; and Professor Wenjie Zhang, deputy head of school (research), School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales, Australia