1920 年，香港政府為了解決日漸增多的學童就學問題，同時成立了官立女子漢文師範學堂和官立漢文男子師範學堂。這兩所學校與1914 年開設的官立實業專科學校漢文師資班和1926 年建立的官立大埔師範學校，共同為當時香港各區漢文學校培養、培訓合格的師資。自1920 年創立到1941 年停辦為止，女師前後一共畢業學生二十一屆二百零二人，為香港基礎教育（特別是女子教育）的發展起了一定的積極作用。由於至今尚未有人對這所早期師訓學校從任何角度進行研究，以致包括教育界的絕大多數港人對它幾乎毫無認識。本文通過搜尋各類零星的文獻資料，希翼盡量理清這所香港歷史上僅有的女子師範學校的發展線索，還其在香港師範教育史上的應有位置，並以此引發同好進一步研究女師及香港教育史的興趣。
The Vernacular Normal School for Women (VNSW) was established in September 1920 by the Hong Kong Government under the governorship of Sir Reginald Edward Stubbs (1919-1925) to solve the problem of shortage of qualified schoolteachers. Together with the Vernacular Normal School for Men (1926-1940) and the Vernacular Tai Po Normal School (1926-1941), the teacher training institutes supplied majority of the qualified pre-service Chinese teachers in Hong Kong during the ensuring two decades. This paper, using primary and secondary sources, discusses the background of establishment, staff and students, curriculum, and closure of the VNSW, as well as its contributions to the progress of Hong Kong's female education.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

This article examines colonial language policies and practices at the government Central School, Hong Kong - the so-called Eton of the East - in the second half of the nineteenth century. The article, which draws on a range of unpublished primary sources, seeks to enhance our knowledge of an important episode in Hong Kong's educational history and, in so doing, illuminate our understanding of British attitudes towards the learning and use of English in the empire. The article is divided into three main sections. The first section analyses the nature and purposes of the scheme to 'centralise' government-sponsored English teaching in a flagship school in the early 1860s. The second section investigates the roles of the English and Chinese languages in the colonial curriculum and the approaches to the teaching of English adopted by the school's founding Headmaster, Frederick Stewart. The final section examines the reform of the Central School in the late nineteenth century.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/le744.0]

This article examines the attitudes of the colonial and metropolitan governments towards the promotion of English-language education on Hong Kong Island between 1842 and 1860. The study, which draws on a range of unpublished primary sources, was conducted in response to Whitehead's recent call for detailed case studies of colonial education policies. This article explores, within the context of Hong Kong, a centrally important aspect of education in the Empire, and one that has been the subject of surprisingly little archival research: British policies towards the teaching and learning of English as a second language. The article begins by analysing the political, economic and demographic forces that influenced the study and use of English in Hong Kong during the 1840s and 1850s, and then moves on to examine language policies and practices in the colony's mission schools, with a particular focus on the Morrison Education Society School, the first Western school to be established on the Island after the British occupation. The final section analyses the introduction of English teaching in the government vernacular schools in the early 1850s.
[Copyright of History of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00467600600745395]

This article examines the evolution of language-in-education policy in Hong Kong during the first six decades of British rule (1842-1902). In particular, it analyses the changing roles and status of the English and Chinese languages during this formative period in the development of the colony's education system. The textual and statistical data presented in the article provide a corrective to the claim that the British imposed English on their colonial subjects and in the process rode roughshod over the indigenous languages. The evidence suggests that Hong Kong's education system provided opportunities for native students to attend purely Chinese schools, purely English schools or mixed-medium schools. Although the British apparently attached more importance to English teaching, they were generally at pains to emphasise that English should not be studied at the expense of Chinese. The findings indicate that language policy (be it Chinese or English in orientation) was always tied in some way to Britain's political and economic interests in the region.
[Copyright of Journal of Educational Administration and History is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220620600984214]

Girls' education has been considered a site of struggle where ideals of femininity and domesticity are translated into curricula and practices that seek to shape and regulate. In colonial Hong Kong, British mission societies had a significant share in providing girls' education, which was predominantly in the hands of European missionaries in the nineteenth century. The dual mission of evangelising and civilising colonial subjects in the Victorian era of empire expansion constituted a pertinent focus of inquiry in the writing of history of girls' education. Drawing on selected texts on missionary literature and government reports, this article examines in what ways a domestic ideology framed within evangelical beliefs and the imperial gaze interplayed with the politics of race and class in shaping girls' education. It challenges the presumed impartiality in education policies and practices concerning both sexes, and discusses women's agency in re-defining identities and boundaries in a colonial society.
[Copyright of History of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00467600802368715]