This article briefly examined the development and reforms of education for students with disabilities worldwide in the last 50 years and that of Hong Kong in the last 3 decades. It addressed the significant progress seen in Hong Kong and called for the need to install systems of transition planning and post-secondary support services that are currently absent in Hong Kong. Benefits of having these systems were discussed, drawing overseas examples in countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia where students with disabilities participate in and are accommodated at all levels of education. It was emphasized that the massive education reforms aiming at transforming the entire education system into a flexible system to accommodate diverse learners and promote lifelong learning for all would have been a perfect platform to address such gaps and issues. The conclusion of the paper calls for discourse and collaboration among relevant stakeholders toward a more inclusive and holistic reform.
[Copyright © 2009 The Hong Kong Special Education Society.]

Approaches to teaching art were studied through interviews with 18 art teachers at secondary schools in Hong Kong. Grounded analysis revealed that the approaches to teaching fitted into a four category model with category labels: instructional, discipline inquiry, social interactive, and personal. The categories were defined and described by six dimensional features: aim; content; role of teacher; role of student; teaching methods; and assessment orientation. The four categories of approaches to teaching could be placed under a higher-order spectrum between subject-and student-centred poles.

In the World Declaration on Education for All, Jomtien, 1990, Article 3 states that no groups of children should “suffer any discrimination in access to learning opportunities”. Hong Kong is now considering a number of major and wide ranging reforms to education which will move closer to this goal. These include substantial reforms to the curriculum, removal of most examinations and the gradual removal of banding by ability. This paper focuses on ability banding, discusses the main issues and shares some data from an ongoing study on equity and excellence in Hong Kong schools.
[Copyright © 2000 Chulalongkorn University.]

Since the early 1990s, the pace of educational reform in Hong Kong has accelerated and broadened to incorporate almost all areas of schooling. The reforms introduced during this period can be subsumed under what has generally been labelled the quality movement. In this paper, we review and comment on a number of policy reform initiatives in the four areas of "Quality Education," English Language Benchmarking, Initial Teacher Training and the Integration of Pupils with Special Needs into Ordinary Classrooms. Following a brief description of each policy initiative, the reforms are discussed in terms of their consistency, coherence and cultural fit.
[Copyright © 2000 The Education Policy Analysis Archives.]

The restructuring of the academic structure and curriculum of the senior secondary education in 2009 has witnessed the on-going drive of the Hong Kong Education Reform in 2000 for a “more flexible and diversified” curriculum (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2005, p.9). To develop students’ ability to make connections across knowledge and concepts from different disciplines and to examine issues from multiple perspectives, new interdisciplinary subjects like Liberal Studies and Integrated Science are introduced into the new senior secondary curriculum. Whilst their introduction would definitely create stress and concerns of teachers, in preparing for new but broader subject content that may require completely different teaching strategies, teachers of traditional disciplinary subjects would also face new challenges through changes in the subject curriculum, teaching and assessment. This symposium therefore aims to discuss how teachers perceive the challenges of teaching interdisciplinary subjects and discipline-based subjects. Before the actual implementation of those new curricula, we have developed and administered specific research tools (in form of interview guidelines and questionnaires) to collect qualitative and quantitative data from curriculum planners and school teachers for the aforementioned interdisciplinary subjects and a number of disciplinary subjects, including Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Geography. Interview data will be used to discuss on how teacher-practitioners’ views are compared with the curriculum planners towards the implementation of Liberal Studies and Integrated Science, whereas both interview and questionnaire survey data from teachers of disciplinary subjects of Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Geography have been analysed to reveal the teachers’ key concerns and perceived problems as arisen from the change in curriculum organization and structure, emphasis on nature of science, science, technology, society and environment, fieldwork and

The paper introduces a research study which is encapsulated within a broader understanding of knowledge and action, theory and practice as well as policy and research. The inquiry of teacher curriculum decision-making is represented by the introduction of the Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC) within a context of curriculum change in Hong Kong. The research question is framed by the problem emerging from a new challenge resulting from a curriculum change. The implementation of the TOC may be perceived as a platform for ongoing critique and reconstruction of a dynamic mix of curriculum theory, policy, research and practice. A collaborative journey of reflection and empowerment is ongoing in the research study. This collaborative journey which is an Action Research study (Koo, 1999) is navigated by a researcher from a teacher education institute to work with the participants, who are a selection of primary school teachers and principals. The Action Research has four Action Steps which have separate main activities and strategies. The initial action steps established a platform for ongoing thinking and reconstructive action. Action Step One was collaborative and a generating phase. The overarching theme was to “think about the context of my own curriculum practice”. It linked the conceptual framework with the initial and ongoing conversations. It was the beginning for the researcher of keeping detailed records of the narratives, conversations as well as her reflections as a researcher. All of the researcher’s strategies are linked with ethical considerations and trustworthiness. Action Step Two was a continuing process of engaging the research participants in a critical community for ongoing critique and improvement in curriculum practice. It comprised three individual semi-focused interviews which were spread out over three to five months. The individual in-depth interviews were different from the sharing meetings of Action Steps 1, 3 and 4 in which teachers told personal