International student mobility has emerged as a key source of societal and educational transformations in the booming economies of East Asia. International competencies are increasingly valued by employees and employers alike. Given the uneven distribution of international student flows, and the inequitable levels of benefit that they bring to various locales and institutions, some jurisdictions are seeking the optimal policy instruments for leveraging public and private interests in the mobility of human resources and knowledge. This case study of Hong Kong looks at the outbound-inbound student flows and explains how the government facilitates cross-border education balances. The researchers utilized the four modes of the General Agreement on Trades in Services framework, and found it to be a helpful tool in analyzing the government's balancing act, despite the challenges associated with the conceptualization of international student mobility as a commodity or trade in services.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.630726]

One major impact of globalisation on education is denoted by the growing trend to use English, the global language, as a medium of instruction (MOI) in emerging polities that are trying to enhance their English-speaking capacities. This article emphasises developing an understanding of MOI from a language policy and planning as well as an educational perspective. It explores the policy and practice of MOI in 10 polities in Asia including Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, using a broad-based framework that aims to explicate the context, motivation, goals, actors, implementation process and outcomes of MOI. The article points out the dominance of English as MOI which is used in eight of the polity studies included in the analysis. It concludes that while the Asian region as a whole reflects the globalisation of English as medium of instruction policies, individual polities may have specific motivations and goals and that they may develop specific strategies to protect their own interests and identities. More crucially, at the macro-policy level, there seems to be a simplistic understanding of MOI as a cheap solution to complex language problems for achieving overly ambitious politico-economic goals and that this leads to less than ideal MOI implementation illustrated by teachers' and students' struggles as policy actors at the micro level.
[Copyright of Current Issues In Language Planning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2013.792130]

The purpose of the study is to analyse and discuss the influences of globalisation and localisation on music education in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It argues that the reform of music education concerns changes to the contents of the curriculum that envisage the cultural and political developments that arise from processes of globalisation and localisation in these two Chinese societies. 'Glocalisation' throughout this essay refers to the interface of the global and the local. I conclude by discussing three issues relating to the processes of glocalisation that have shaped music education and cultural identity in these two changing societies: (1) the multiculturalism of music education; (2) the promotion of local music cultures in the curriculum; and (3) the inclusion of Confucian ethics in song lyrics. This study argues that education that promotes family values and social harmony can satisfy concerns that glocalisation involves the adoption of both Chinese and foreign songs in the school curriculum.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2012.686678]

The authors examined the relationships of cognitive (i.e., memorization and elaboration) and metacognitive learning strategies (i.e., control strategies) to mathematics achievement among 15-year-old students in 4 high-performing East Asian education systems: Shanghai-China, Hong Kong-China, Korea, and Singapore. In all 4 East Asian education systems, memorization strategies were negatively associated with mathematics achievement, whereas control strategies were positively associated with mathematics achievement. However, the association between elaboration strategies and mathematics achievement was a mixed bag. In Shanghai-China and Korea, elaboration strategies were not associated with mathematics achievement. In Hong Kong-China and Singapore, on the other hand, elaboration strategies were negatively associated with mathematics achievement. Implications of these findings are briefly discussed.
[Copyright of Journal of Genetic Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2013.799057]