The traditional assessment landscape in Hong Kong has been changed since a large scale educational reform was launched six years ago. Recommendations for change encouraged more diverse forms of student assessment. However, the traditional examination-oriented culture within a Chinese context has added difficulty to the implementation of assessment reform in Hong Kong. This paper reports a case study of four project schools. It investigates how teachers experimented with assessment reform in school policy and practice. The focus lies on how teachers express their understanding of student assessment reform in classroom practice. The findings show how teachers understand student assessment, how they put their ideas of formative assessment into practice, and the challenges they face in the reform process.

This paper outlines the development of a scale for investigating Hong Kong student teachers epistemological beliefs and the application of that scale. The scale has its genesis in the work of Schommer (1989, 1990) in North America. She proposed five theoretical dimensions of epistemological beliefs viz Simple Knowledge, Certain Knowledge, Fixed Ability, Quick Learning and Omniscient Authority and developed a 63 item questionnaire to investigate these. In subsequent factor analysis she identified only four such dimensions- with omniscient authority not identified. The scale developed by the authors incorporated dimensions labelled as Authority/ expert Knowledge, Certainty Knowledge, Innate/Fixed Ability, and Learning Process/Effort. This scale was used to investigate relationships of these four epistemological dimensions with age, gender, electives studied and course type. There was a significant difference between the Chinese and English course students and this is discussed in terms of the possible effect of traditional Chinese/Confucian culture and the impact of western culture and philosophy on the Hong Kong Chinese students.

Realizing the changing needs of Hong Kong special schools, the Department of Special Education of the Hong Kong Institute of Education included the elements of assistive technology and multimedia teaching in the module "Technology in Special Education" for in-service teachers in special education courses. Funded by a UGC Teaching Development Grant, the module teaching team started research and launched this project on using multimedia technology in special education. In the project, the Special Education Multimedia Teaching Resource Unit (SEMTRUP) was successfully set up in the Department in September, 1998. This paper will introduce the details of the project and illustrate how the teaching and learning quality is improved during the process.

INTRODUCTION: In Hong Kong, almost all secondary schools adopt the "Class System" to allocate students into different classes. A teacher is assigned to each class as a form teacher of the class. He is responsible for the moral and social life training of the students in the class (Yau and Luk,1986). There are some assigned duties for form teachers and also there are some unofficial duties that are assumed to be taken up by them. Since 1979, the nine-year free-education has initiated a problem in secondary schools. Under this compulsory education system, no matter a student is interested in studying or not, he has to stay in a school until he is 15 years old. That is why there are more and more juvenile delinquency problems happen in secondary schools. The role of a form teacher became more important and his work- load was tremendously increased since then. Besides being a counselor, a form teacher is also vital in the development of the class spirit. Sometimes, a form teacher even takes up the role of parents in caring for the students (Yau and Luk, 1986). From the aspect of the school, a form teacher is expected to act as a bridge between the school, the parents and the class. He is to twin together the strength of the school, the home and the society's education. Besides, as schools nowadays tend to be more administratively individualized, the multi- functional effects of a form teacher must augment his role as a moderator in different functional groups of the school. Thus, a Form Master System is very important in secondary schools education because a form teacher can act as a twist-tie that binds together the community, the home and various departments of the school. He is a moderator in school administration. He is also a front line educator because he can approach the students right away easily. In China, there is a much greater expectation on a form teacher that it may even have a study mainly on "Form Teachers" and a Form teachers' handbook describing their

Computer education in Hong Kong secondary schools has a short history. The histories of Computer and Information Technology education in junior secondary and primary schools are even shorter. This report is part of the comprehensive review of the development of teacher education of Computer and Information Technology in Hong Kong. It focuses mainly on computer courses for teachers, especially those developed in the colleges of education and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. There are three different stages: (1) before the implementation of the Certificate-Level Computer Studies; (2) from the implementation of the Computer Studies subject to the formation of the Hong Kong Institute of Education; and (3) after the establishment of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Implications of the development in computer teacher education will be discussed.
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