This paper reviews the return of Hong Kong to China and considers the implications for Hong Kong civic education. It also describes the negligible attention given to civic education previously and discusses some of the reasons for this.

Hong Kong has put forward a package of education reform proposals in 2000. The education reform is to set the blueprint for Hong Kong's development of education for the 21st century. An analysis of the values orientation of the reform proposals shows that the impact of globalization and the economic restructuring are the guiding forces. The main concern of the education reform is human investment - to produce the manpower demanded by a new economy of the era of information technology. At the same time, the proposals also promote democratization and equal opportunities and this implies a paradigm shift.
[Copyright of School Effectiveness and School Improvement is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/sesi.15.2.201.30431]

Sex education is not treated as an important subject in the school curriculum of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Education Department issued in 1986 and 1997, respectively, two guidelines on sex education for schools' reference. The 1997 Guidelines cover a broader conceptual framework relating to different aspects of human sexuality and also include teaching strategies. Surveys by the Education Department in the early 1990s showed that there were a lot of problems in promoting sex education in schools. To see whether there had been any progress in sex education in the post-handover period to China from the United Kingdom, a working group of the Hong Kong Institute of Education carried out a study on this issue in the year 1999-2000. Data were collected through a survey and a small number of structured interviews. The study reveals that secondary schools are now generally more positive in promoting sex education and more interactive teaching methods are used. However, there are still a lot of constraints in the promotion of sex education in schools in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Sex Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681810500171458]