Drawing on data gathered from British Council seminars in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai on Absent Talent: Women in Research and Academic Leadership (2012-2013), this paper discusses academic women's experiences and explanations for women's under-representation as knowledge leaders and producers in the global academy. Participants from South and East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Australasia and Europe shared experiences and identified desires for future action in the form of a Manifesto for Change. The paper combines empirical data on enablers, impediments and attractions with consideration of debates on women's exclusions and disqualifications from academic leadership and knowledge production. A key question is whether women are desiring, dismissing or being disqualified from senior leadership positions in the global academy.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.864611]

香港的鄉村學校，歷史悠長，曾在香港的教育發展扮演重要的角色 1；隨著近年出生率下降，鄉村學校正面臨結束，然而，香港少數村校，在政府不准招收小學一年級的影響下仍有能力繼續接收從別校轉過來的「插班生」。本文將以兩所村校的經驗為個案，探討學生為何轉校？以及家長為何會選擇鄉村學校？調查發現村校的「學習的環境」和學生的「自尊感」是村校學生成績進步和個人成長的重要因素。本文指出：在香港的情境脈絡裡，傳統的「成本」、「效益」觀念需要進一步檢視和省思。
As the birth rate in Hong Kong declines constantly in recent years, many villages are going to be closed. However, many of them have played an active role in the educational development of Hong Kong. It is difficult to understand why some village schools still can enroll students from P.2 to P.6, although they have not been permitted to enroll P.1 students under the primary school enrolment policy of the government. The article, which takes two village schools as case study, intends to explore the questions that: Why students left their primary schools while studying? Why parents take village school as their own choice? Our survey finds that "learning environment" and "student self-esteem" are two main factors that have effects upon both academic results and personal development of the students in the village schools. It is purposed that the "cost-benefit analysis" needed to be revised in the local context in Hong Kong.
[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/]