Factors affecting planning effectiveness in Hong Kong self-managing schools are investigated. Questionnaire survey data from teachers, gathered in late 1994 from schools participating in the Phases I & II of the School Management Initiative scheme, are analyzed by principal-components analysis and multiple regression. Flexible planning, teachers’ participation in planning, principal’s support and resource support are found to be significant factors in predicting positive outcomes of planning. The concept of flexible planning is explored and conceptualized in terms of built-in flexibility and flexibility through evaluation. As interactive model, “A self-Managing School Planning Model”, which is responsive, recurrent and flexible in nature, is proposed.

School-based Management (SBM) is regarded as the centrepiece of the current educational reforms which aims to enhance quality of education since 1980s (Caldwell & Spinks, 1992; Cheng, 1996b; Gamage, 1996; Wong, 1995). To enhance quality culture, flexibility, transparency and accountability, the policy-makers introduce a new school management reform policy, entitled “The School Management Initiative (SMI)”, to Hong Kong schools in 1991. Mr. Tung Chee-hwa, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), even announced in his policy address (Tung, 1998) that all schools should practise SBM by 2000. With reference to the latest SMI report, there are altogether 43% secondary schools and 23.3% primary schools practising SBM in 1997-98 academic year. The implication shows that many schools need to join the new initiative within two years time. Why is there a huge gap in between the policy and the front line? In order to have a closer look at how people interact and how these effects affect the promotion of school improvement in the change process, a small scale research with a stratified sample of nine aided primary schools was conducted in May, 1998. The result of the findings demonstrated some important implications that effective leadership, collegiality, healthy interpersonal relations are essential to accelerate the effectiveness of the school management scheme which can enhance the quality of school education of Hong Kong as a whole.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

No matter whether in the context of Hong Kong or other parts of the world, the school reform towards school-based management is a complicated change process involving the multiple school constituencies and creating uncertainties as well as opportunities for them to learn, change, and develop. This paper aims to report and analyze some significant and interesting phenomena observed in the development and implementation of the school-based management policy in Hong Kong. The findings suggest that the school-based management reform is a long-term process of policy development, in which all concerned constituencies can contribute to further define, develop, and shape the policy. Only when the involved actors perceive more positive meanings from the change, they are more effective in creating and using opportunities for development and maximizing all potential benefits from the process of school reform. Hopefully, the Hong Kong case of school-based management can provide useful implications for school-based management movements in both local and international contexts.

Contemporary practice of school-based management world-wide aims at providing schools with increased autonomy so that they may acquire the necessary flexibility, responsiveness and proactiveness to meet the challenges ahead in the changing external and internal school environment. Theoretically, schools practicing school-based management may therefore be more effective. However, researchers do not have convergent views regarding the effect of school-based management. Some noted very encouraging and positive effects. On the other hand, some observed fairly negative results with the absence of empirical evidence that school-based management is related to students’ educational outcomes. Responding to these observations, Cheung & Cheng (1996a) asserted that the effectiveness of school-based management depends largely on the self management behavior of teachers working in groups and individually. In order to maximize the benefit of school-based management, key actors should practice self management cycles at the school, group and teacher levels. This paper discusses how the practice of this self management framework could facilitate the school, groups and individual teachers in continuous self learning and development, and in turn enhance multi-level performance in school. Taking the practice of School Management Initiative (SMI – as one type of school-based management) in Hong Kong schools as an example, the paper first analyses the recommendations set out in the SMI policy document. Then the authors examine the degree to which these recommendations could facilitate multi-level self management of the key actors in school. Based on the result of the analysis and the conception of Cheung & Cheng (1996a), the paper proposes directions for further development of school-based management in Hong Kong. It is hoped that the recommended directions may provide insights for both the policy makers and school practitioners to further develop the practice of school-based management

The School Management Initiative (SMI) is a school-based management (SBM) reform in Hong Kong schools. Reviews on studies of implementation obstacles and strategies of school-based management were huge (e.g. Ornstein, 1983; Wholstetter & Odden, 1992; Leithwood & Menzies, 1996) but experiences from Hong Kong might be ignored. Viewing from multiple perspectives of organizational theory, viz., the structural perspective, the human resource perspective, the political perspective, and the cultural perspective, this paper reviews past literature on SBM researches and reform studies of local schools to identify obstacles and strategies that are applicable to the implementation of the SMI scheme. In terms of the structural perspective, some SMI schools still take the form of Administrative Control hindering the progress of the other two forms, Professional Control SBM and Community Control SBM, because the control of schools are still retained by school sponsoring bodies (SSB). There may remain no clear accountability and role in some schools for key actors who hang onto traditional roles especially for the SSB, the school management committee and the school supervisor. The lack of common goals for key stakeholders in some schools is also an implementation obstacle. The strategies identified to be useful to cope with such obstacles are: to enforce clearer role and accountability on actors at different levels, including government departments, SSB, and site level management; to create participative decision making structure; and to build up common school goals accepted by key stakeholders. For the human resource perspective, obstacles spotted are: the rapid staff turnover in schools with unfavorable conditions; stakeholders' lack of adequate skills and knowledge; the increased stress and pressure on teachers and administrators due to more involvement in school management and appraisal system; and the insufficient time and resources available for teaching and related work. The

Teaching duty assignment is an important aspect of human resource management in a secondary school. This problem is currently solved by human planners. A prototype of an Intelligent Decision Support System for Teaching Duty Assignments (TDAS) has been successfully constructed and validated. The assignment aims to incur minimum dissatisfaction to teachers by distributing workload evenly among teachers. The automation of such a planning activity can reduce the pressure on a planner that are induced from the anxiety of teachers of being manipulated by the human planner. This system is the first of its kind in Hong Kong secondary schools. The algorithms have been tested on a set of real life data of a secondary school. The result was compared with its counterpart which was produced manually by the school principal with favourable comments that the computer result was usable.

With the introduction of School Management Initiative (SMI) in Hong Kong schools in recent years, teachers' participation in decision making becomes one of the main themes in school management. By employing a model made of three dimensions, namely decision domain, decision level and decision involvement pattern, this study aims to investigate the patterns, processes and consequences of teachers' participation in decision making in SMI schools. The research adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods in studying two secondary SMI schools. A questionnaire was developed to survey teachers' involvement pattern of making decisions on the issues of technical and managerial domains at individual, group and school levels. 19 teachers from a SMI school participated in a pilot study to test the reliability and validity of the instrument. After a slight revision of the questionnaire as a result of the pilot study, teachers from the two subject schools participated in the questionnaire survey. A total of 105 copies of the questionnaire were distributed through a teacher at each of the two subject schools and there were 84 valid responses giving a return rate of 80 percent. Then the two principals and fourteen teachers from the two subject schools were interviewed to collect information for validating the results of involvement pattern obtained in the questionnaire survey and for studying the processes and consequences of participative decision making. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed into verbatim. Besides, documentary analysis on school profiles, plans, reports and magazines provided information supplementary to the interviews. Quantitative data were run with the statistical package of SPSS for Windows 6.1" while qualitative data were analyzed with the prepared theoretical framework. The results suggested the following points: 1. Teachers were more actively participated and more satisfied with the conditions for making decision after their schools

Purpose: This paper aims to report a case study of 93 parents’ attitude towards their involvement at various levels of school education in a special school. It also examines the relations between parents’ education backgrounds and different levels of parental involvement. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted quantitative research approach. A questionnaire composed of 30 items under six scales was developed with reference to Ng’s (1999) six–level Model of Home-School Cooperation which was adopted to frame the study. Findings: The study indicates that parents’ inclined to be involved more outside the school including ‘two-way communication’, ‘supervision of children at home’ and ‘participation in parent organizations and activities’ than that inside the school such as ‘volunteering’, ‘providing advice on school policies’ and ‘participating in decision making’. Research limitations/implications: In spite of its small scale in a case-study special school, it does not aim at generalization but illuminate how parental involvement was carried out. Practical implications: The study carries the implications for school management and policy makers when promoting and implementing parental involvement in special schools. Originality/value: For the school personnel, a total and positive relationship could help enhance efficient and effective management of education. Second, more resources should be provided by the Education Bureau for special schools to educate parents and subsidize their involvement. Third, more training opportunities regarding knowledge and skills of parental involvement be provided for frontline teachers.
[Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.]

「家長參與」成為香港近年其中一個重要的教育變革。基於社會的變遷，範式轉移，和全球化校本管理的簡政放權改革運動，香港家長在學童教育的角色由傳統的麻煩製造者和被動參與者過渡成為今天被廣泛認同的積極溝通者、學校義務工作者及管理者，最後形成了家長與學校工作人員的夥伴關係。本文引用香港教育政策文件及相關文獻參考，目的旨在探討近二十年香港家長在其子女教育中的蛻變角色，及其對教師和學校運作的衝擊。作者把這段時期家校關係的發展概念化為五個階段：包括家長沉默與順從期、家長權利的甦醒期、家校聯繫期、學校問責期和家長全面參與期。作者同時指出在現職和職前的教師教育培訓課程中，有需要加入「家校合作」的知識、技能和態度訓練去裝備前線的教育工作者，冀能改變教師對家長參與學校教育的價值觀及增強教師與家長工作的效能。

隨著新來港兒童的增加，政府撥出了額外的資源，以學校為本的方式，為這些學童提供支援，讓他們能夠漸漸適應香港的環境，最終能融入香港的社會。適值香港教育當局大力推行「校本管理」，校方能有較大的自主權去運用資源，有助於推行新來港學童教育。本文透過訪問幾位校長，了解校本管理的配合及校長的領導對新來港學童教育的重要性。
[Copyright © 2004 師大書苑有限公司]