Project learning as 'soft' curriculum policy: Policy influences on teachers' implementation of education reforms in Hong Kong

Project learning as 'soft' curriculum policy: Policy influences on teachers' implementation of education reforms in Hong Kong

• Fok, Ping Kwan The Hong Kong Institute of Education
• Kennedy, Kerry John The Hong Kong Institute of Education
• Chan, Kin Sang Jacqueline The Hong Kong Institute of Education

2005

Faculty of Education of CUHK 40th Anniversary International Conference: Developing Teacher Leadership and Education Partnership in the Face of Education Reform (2005: The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

• R Educational Policy & Administration
  • RG Education Reforms

Teacher Curriculum Policy Implemention Project Learning

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

After the handover, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government implemented drastic and enormous curriculum reforms, including project learning as one of the four key tasks. Over 80% of Hong Kong primary and secondary schools have adopted project learning as a curriculum task, which signifies the importance of teacher’s role and attitude in curriculum implementation. Yet the pressures on teachers and schools to achieve this result should not be underestimated. In this paper, the concept of “soft” and “hard” policy will be introduced as a means of analyzing the issues facing teachers in implementing the education reforms. “Soft” policy is characterized by persuasion, benchmarking and best practice exemplars. “Hard” policy on the other hand is explicitly embedded in legislation and budgetary allocations. This article will analyse the characteristics of project learning as a “soft” curriculum policy. It possesses features such as being practical, adaptable to context, emphasizing teaching processes, capable of being led from the classroom and is characterized by flexibility. Great emphasis is placed on conferences, seminars, sharing exemplars to promote and encourage teachers to work on this reform. On the other hand, however, the government uses “hard” means to monitor school compliance with the reforms. Thus, school self evaluation and external school evaluation are used to assess the extent to which schools are implementing curriculum innovations such as project learning. There are thus twin pressures on teachers and schools caused by the use of both “hard” and “soft” policy instruments.

Paper presented at Faculty of Education of CUHK 40th Anniversary International Conference: Developing Teacher Leadership and Education Partnership in the Face of Education Reform.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/bd064044

2015-01-23