In 1996, OMEP-Hong Kong published a document titled “Criteria for High Quality Programmes of Early Childhood Education and Care in Hong Kong”. We recently received funding from the Government’s Quality Education Fund for a research project to develop and (validate) a Programme Assessment Scale (PAS) for kindergartens and child-care centres. This paper describes preliminary findings from our study and we hope that this scale will be useful tool for administrators of early childhood programmes. The PAS was developed based on the OMEP criteria and included the following ten area: Curriculum design, Interactions between staff and students, Interactions between staff and parents, Staffing patterns, Staff qualifications and development, Physical administration, and Evaluation. The degree to which programmes met the criteria in these area was assessed utilizing a 3-point rating scale (not met, partially met and fully met) and through observation of classes for 4-year-olds. Preliminary results suggest that (i) it was possible to make a distinction between meeting minimum and high quality standards in the various areas measured by the PAS; (ii) there was variability in the ratings for the different areas; few programmes achieved uniformly high ratings in all areas; and (iii) administrators were concerned with improving the quality of their programmes. More detailed findings will be presented and their implications will be discussed.

The twenty-first century is a period of educational reform, of which school improvement has been one of the strategies for successful change stressed by various entities. Under the foremost notion of schools’ quality assurance and improvement, different places in the world have marked the significance of performance assessment on early childhood education. In Hong Kong, the previous Education and Manpower Bureau launched a “Voucher Scheme” for early childhood education in 2007. The Scheme requires participating kindergartens to undertake a self- and external- evaluation in order to strengthen their quality assurance mechanism, and to make the education more accountable to parents and society. Making use of a local school as an illustration, this paper presents and discusses the case under the “School-based Quality Improvement Scheme” organized by the Centre for Early Childhood Research and Development of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The main support depicted in the case will adopt the “Performance Indicators Framework of the Hong Kong Early Childhood Education” as a theoretical and practice reference on discussions. The plan, process and outcomes of the Improvement Scheme on the case under studied will also be briefly introduced.

The symposium aims at sharing the personal experience of the principals of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Kindergartens on the effect of Staff Development Programme on promoting quality kindergarten programme in their schools. In order to promote the quality of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Kindergarten education, the Management Committee of Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Kindergartens had organized a series of staff development programme for the teaching staff and principals. The staff development programme which included a one workshop on teaching approaches, a 13-session staff development seminars for principals and head teachers funded by the Quality Education Fund and a project on reading stories with young children had been conducted from March 98 to July 98. the principals found that the series of staff development programme had enhanced their construction of professional knowledge and the management of their kindergartens. The symposium will provide opportunities for the presenters and the audience to share their first hand experience on the related issues.