Hong Kong as a source for education policy in England: Rhetoric and reality

Hong Kong as a source for education policy in England: Rhetoric and reality

• Adamson, Robert Damian The Hong Kong Institute of Education

The 59th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society: "Ubuntu! Imagining a Humanist Education Globally" (2015: Washington Hilton, USA)

• R Educational Policy & Administration
  • RC Educational Planning & Decision Making Process, Educational Administration

• Hong Kong
• England

• 1980s
• 1990-1997.6
• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Since the creation of systems of mass education, national governments have looked beyond their borders to identify how to develop and improve their education systems. For many decades, the developing world looked to the education systems of the affluent and industrialized West. Since the mid-1980s, however, the source of models of best practice has shifted following the introduction of international tests of pupil achievement, e.g., the studies carried out by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), as well as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Such studies are seen as providing objective evidence of the effectiveness of school systems, and a common feature has been the consistently strong performance of pupils from a number of East Asian contexts (including Hong Kong), and some Scandinavian countries (especially Finland) (Grek 2009, Alexander 2010, Morris 2012). The education policies and practices of these "high performing" education systems and economies have emerged as models of best practices for policy makers around the world (Steiner-Khamsi 2004). Thus what was predominantly a West-East policy flow has become multidirectional. Historically, Hong Kong appropriated British education models as part of its colonial heritage. Significant reforms, tailored to the local context, were proposed by visiting experts from the UK. The process of decolonization began in 1984 with the Joint Declaration, stipulating the retrocession of the territory in 1997. Education policies in Hong Kong since the mid-1980s reflect the parting of ways in the political sense, as Hong Kong distances itself from its colonial past and draws increasingly on other sources to reform the educational system. As one of the "high performing" countries on both PISA and TIMSS, Hong Kong has been used as a model of good practice in many countries, especially in the West. Following the perception of poor performance in tests of pupil achievement, England has increasingly drawn lessons for educational policy and practice from high performing East Asian countries, especially Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan (Morris 2012) to support and legitimize various reform agendas. This paper analyzes the two sides of external policy referencing, with England utilizing Hong Kong as a "point of reference." By comparing the patterns in a "high performing" economy such as Hong Kong's, with those of an established but "less dynamic economy" such as England's, and with reference to practices in similar societies, the study provides an insight into the broader patterns of external policy referencing between the West and East Asia. Using documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with policy makers and other key stakeholders in England and Hong Kong, the study explores two research questions: (1)

Paper presented at the 59th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society: "Ubuntu! Imagining a Humanist Education Globally", Washington Hilton, USA.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/7c120903

2015-06-23