There has been a massification of higher education in Hong Kong since the late 1980s. In addition to programmes offered by local higher education institutions, there are plenty of off-shore degree programmes provided by overseas institutions. In the meantime, Hong Kong has been restructured to an international financial centre, and its financial…

This article explores the significance of context within the process of contemporary education reform and policy-making. It draws upon evidence from a comparative study of educational change and transformation in seven education systems: Australia, England, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Russia, and Singapore. The article focuses on school…

Teachers and school administrators in Hong Kong have had to cope with more work and performance pressure as they strive to implement educational reforms aimed at deepening students' life-long learning skills. Management systems, which save time and transfer ideas, experiences, and knowledge more efficiently could help schools meet reform goals and…

Demand has risen for the introduction of career education in senior secondary schooling to enhance students' transition from study to work. Against such a background, this paper aims to discuss the curriculum reforms and supporting structures in schools and to explore the challenges of life skills planning for secondary school students in China…

School to work transition is an important aspect of lifelong learning that has increased in significance as the knowledge-based economy takes off in developed countries. Rapid structural economic changes, the importance of innovation, and a shorter lifecycle of products require education systems to adjust to the needs of economies and individuals.…

Despite its rapid expansion in many countries around the world, private tutoring has attracted only limited attention from policy makers and researchers. This is especially surprising in the case of Asia, where high rates of private tuition have been reported. In particular, comparatively few studies have considered the views of the individual…

In major curriculum reforms, there are inevitably gaps between design and implementation issues, taking the introduction of liberal studies (LS) into the senior secondary curriculum in Hong Kong as a classic example. The current paper illustrates how the implementation of LS as a compulsory core subject has impacted noticeably on Hong Kong senior…

This study focuses on the transformation of pro-Beijing labour education in the socio-political context of Hong Kong. It explores the reasons that Hong Kong pro-Beijing educators initiated Workers' Night Schools for adults; the organisation of schools in many locales and the transformation of labour education that workers received in these…

This article aims to examine the predictive relationships of self-evaluation capacity and staff competency on the effect of strategic planning in aided secondary schools in Hong Kong. A quantitative questionnaire survey was compiled to collect data from principals of the participating schools. Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests…

The literature suggests that peer assessment contributes to the development of student learning and promotes ownership of assessment processes. These claims emerge from research conducted primarily in Western contexts. This exploratory paper reports on the perspectives that a class of Hong Kong primary school students and their teachers have on…

This study focuses on the policy issues generated by the reintroduction of Liberal Studies and evaluates the predicted effectiveness of the proposed curriculum in Hong Kong (HK) secondary schools. Theorised by Ball (1992) "policy cycle", approximately 200 newspaper articles and 30 government documents were collected to identify the…

In response to several major curriculum reforms in Hong Kong since 2000, schools were required to initiate policies that catered for learner diversity. As well academic achievement, the reforms also emphasized the affective and social outcomes of the learning experience. A whole-school approach to learner diversity includes students with low…

This study reports on the Hong Kong education quality assurance and school monitoring system. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Who controls the quality of school education in Hong Kong? (2) What strategies are used in the Hong Kong school education quality assurance process? (3) Agenda for Future Research on quality assurance and…

Teachers are normally trained to work effectively with one dominant culture. As such, they are poorly prepared to handle cultural differences; sometimes they simply define students from diverse culture and with learning difficulties as students at risk. This study reports a group of 100 Chinese in-service teachers' attitudes of cultural difference…

For more than a decade, the Government of Hong Kong has instituted a policy of school decentralization aimed at devolving authority to all stakeholders, including the representatives of School Sponsoring Bodies, principals, teachers, parents, and community members. This study examines the relative contribution of two dimensions of school…