The teaching profession, similar to other human service occupations, requires recruits to have a strong sense of social responsibility, as their commitment is to help their students to become better citizens. Success in recruiting qualified and committed teachers, nevertheless, depends on whether the teaching career is attractive to quality and motivated young people. This paper reports a quantitative and qualitative study of the perceptions of teaching as a career by graduates from twenty secondary schools with different backgrounds in Hong Kong. It analyzed the relationship of the characteristics of these students with their interest in teaching, and examined the factors which may have influenced their choice of teaching as a career. It is hoped that the findings of the study could increase our understanding of young people's perceptions of a teaching career in different societies, and help policy makers adopt more effective measures to increase the attractiveness of teaching to qualified school leavers.

In Hong Kong, the move towards quality education has stirred up waves of changes in the education setting in the late 90s. Drastic changes have been implemented in terms of curriculum, methodology and forms of school management. Borrowed heavily from the Western democracies, the contemporary educational policy and practice in Hong Kong are increasingly directed by the market model of educational provision valuing consumer choice; accountability; quality assurance; devolution of authority and participative management process. In the face of these changes, three issues are pertinent to school leadership - Firstly, the approaches towards School-based Management stress the importance of school heads to work closely with the various stakeholders who may have different and often conflicting role expectations on their school heads. Role incumbents may find themselves confused when determining framework of defined outcomes and accountability. Secondly, the injection of consumer control into school operation and the marketisation of educational provision denote the need of school heads to have a deeper understanding of the needs, expectations and aspirations of the various stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in school management. Thirdly, increasing demands for school heads to seek professional development opportunities that will broaden their existing knowledge and increase their array of management skills to cope with the current changes. While research literature is enormous on the studies of role expectations and job aspirations of school heads especially from the perspective of teachers, parents and even heads themselves, however, there is a lack of robust research locally and abroad on the perspective of the neglected and yet the most directly involved stakeholder - the students. The present study attempts to develop understanding of the role expectations of primary school heads as viewed from the students' perspective and to identify the effects of such expectations

Apart from fun, challenges, and social interaction, one apparent learning outcome of physical education (PE) is the development of physical competence or attributes in terms of sport skills, general motor abilities, physical fitness, body outlook, etc. It seems likely that through school PE positive self-perceptions can be developed. Previous studies conducted among university and high school students across different countries confirmed that sport participation is related to more positive self-perceptions. However, it is not clear whether similar patterns can also be found in primary school children. This paper reports the findings of a recent study that involved 60 classes of upper primary pupils (N=2000) of ten Hong Kong schools. Cluster analysis was utilized to determine the relationship between sport participation and a set of psychological measures including goal orientations, global self-esteem, physical self-worth, and four sub-domain physical self-perceptions (sport competence, physical condition, body attractiveness, and physical strength). Findings were discussed in the light of social cognitive perspectives. Guidelines for teaching primary physical education were recommended.

Biotechnology has tremendous applications in the areas of agriculture, environment, fuels and chemicals, food and drink, gene cloning, and medicine. Also, when biotechnology applies to humans especially in genetic engineering, it stimulates controversial debates on bioethical issues. While biotechnology is increasing in the news, awareness of its overall significance remains limited. This is especially true for high school students. Many western governments have been planning to bridge the gap. In Hong Kong however, the pace is comparatively slow. This study is unique in being the first in Hong Kong to inquire into the student perception (knowledge and attitudes) of biotechnology. Based on the findings, this study is to make recommendations for integrating biotechnology in the science classes.
[Copyright © 1999 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).]

Hong Kong's policy of academic banding, whereby students are placed in secondary schools according to factors such as test scores and available places, often influences the type of education a student receives. In the area of technology education, with subjects such as Design & Technology (D&T), the programs vary, depending on the band of student in the program. This study examined pupils' attitudes toward technology and what effect the characteristics of banding and subjects such as D&T had on attitudes. Using a 58-item instrument to gauge Pupils' Attitudes Toward Technology, over 3,000 students were surveyed from 17 schools. Of these schools, seven were from upper band (1&2), while ten were from lower band schools (4&5). Basic characteristics of the students' were obtained on such areas as mother's and father's occupation, computers at home, and whether or not they have taken "technology" subjects such as D&T in school. Attitudes were grouped in categories of "Interest", "Role Patterns", "Technology is Difficulty", Consequences of Technology", "School Curriculum", and "Career Aspirations". The results indicated interactions with three of the six attitude categories. The results suggested a review of the approach to teaching technology and student access to such courses is required.

On June 30, 1997, the handover ceremony ended 155 years' of British colonial rule and marked the beginning of resumption of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong. However, did allegiance and sense of belonging of the people of Hong Kong drastically readjust to match the political transfer? What did the identity of 'citizen under "one country, two systems'" mean to the people of Hong Kong, especially the student-teachers sculptors of the mind of to-morrow? To match the political transition, Civic Education has been promoted in Hong Kong since the issuing of the First Guideline in 1986. Since that time, in the process of curriculum development in Civic Education, there has been a hot debate on whether the focus of Civic Education should be placed on democratic education or nationalistic education. This debate is bound to continue in the upcoming curriculum development and teaching in Civic Education. In this debate, what position did student-teachers take? In late 1996, it was decided that Civic Education should become an independent subject of study in Junior forms. The syllabus was compiled and drafts issued for public consultations. The finalized version is to be implemented in late 1998. To what extent were aims and objectives, and contents of the new guideline endorsed by student-teachers? This study included a survey by questionnaires of Social Sciences elective student-teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. It was conducted in December, 1997. The questions in the questionnaire were developed basing on the aims, objectives and contents of the draft of the 1998 Civic Education Guideline and other policy papers related to Civic Education. It intended to find out student-teachers' conceptions of citizenship and citizenship education under "one country, two systems", focussing on the 2 key issues of democratic education and nationalistic education. It explored the extent to which the aims, objectives and contents of the 1998 Civic Education Guideline were endorsed

Bioethics is defined in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics as'The systematic study of human conduct in the area of the life sciences and health care, insofar as this conduct is examined in the light of moral values and principles" (Reich, 1978). The term bioethics is almost synonymous with biomedical ethics (Beauchamp & Childress, 1989). Brody & Engelhardt (1987) point out: 'because we are all either prospective patients or family members of prospective patients, the bioethical issues raised by contemporary health care are unavoidable.' Therefore, bioethical issues are inevitably confronted by everyone sooner or later. In the classrooms, bioethical issues arc likely to be increasingly in the spotlight in coming years (Simpson, 1996), and there are several justifiable reasons for placing bioethical issues in the curriculum (O'Brien, 1996). Many modern advances in science and technology have social implications. Notably among them are bioethical issues, such as human fertility controls, sex pre-determination, birth controls, abortion, AIDS & sexually transmitted diseases, homosexuality, euthanasia, genetic manipulations, animal experimentation, and environmental protection. Attitudes towards these bioethical issues not only affect the welfare of the present generations, but also have serious social repercussions extending to the future generations. The Hong Kong Government have urged schools to help students develop moral qualities so that they would become ethical and responsible citizens. Such an aim of education as to build up moral and ethical character has been strongly advocated since 2500 years ago by Confucius, and recently notably by Johann Friedrich Herbart (Gangel & Benson, 1983). Therefore it is of great importance to see whether our Hong Kong college students have conscientious judgment in these bioethical issues. The present study intends to investigate (i) the concepts of ethics and bioethics, (ii) the attitudes & rationales towards various bioethical issues