Business education has been offered in Hong Kong secondary schools for more than 50 years, and has gone through a number of key stages in response to economic growth. The key developmental stages are: (a) 1950s and 1960s, (b) 1970 to mid-1980s, (c) mid-1980s to 1999, and (d) 2000 to 2008. Another new stage of development will be implemented in 2009. This paper provides a historical review of the four key developmental stages, introduces the forthcoming new stage, and analyses and discusses the curriculum development of all these stages in line with the economic changes. It is recommended that pupils in different forms and at different academic levels be taught both generic business knowledge and vocational aspects of business to sustain Hong Kong’s economic success.
[Copyright © 2008 International Vocational Education and Training Association.]

This study identifies the meaning of students’ competence conceived by 26 secondary school business teachers in Hong Kong by using phenomenographic research and dicusses how these conceptions draw implications on business education. Findings show that students’ competence is seen as possessing: (1) work-based skills, (2) good subject knowledge, (3) professional attributes, (4) critical thinking ability, (5) practical experience, and (6) a belief in lifelong learning. These six conceptions are illustrated with sufficient extracts and further covered in three dimensions: performance, personal, and integrated. They are basically in line with the views on developing competent youth in knowledge-based society and empower the latest development of business education in a global sense.
[Copyright © 2006 International Vocational Education and Training Association.]

In view of the rapid need for using information and communication technology (ICT) in TVET, teachers need to realize and generate technology-based strategies. This study aimed to transform modules to online learning by using engaged learning theory via Blackboard system. Through a collection of students’ and teachers’ reflections, assignments and online records, it was found that students and teachers increased their level of participation in an e-learning environment but some costs and challenges were also identified. This paper employs a Business Studies module to illustrate the online learning transformation with Blackboard to report students’ and teachers’ responses. Furthermore, it identifies their changing roles throughout. The costs, benefits, and challenges of using Blackboard in TVET are also discussed.
[Copyright © 2010 International Vocational Education and Training Association.]

This article explores pupils’ attitudes toward technology relative to academic banding as well as gender and other variables. Over 2,800 students in 22 schools completed questionnaires. Results indicated that students in lower band schools were more likely than students in higher band schools to participate in Design and Technology (D&T) programs. Moreover, many more students had computers in their homes than did when a similar study was conducted in 1997 (Volk & Yip, 1999). The implications of this study relate to improving the type of program that students in lower bands receive and encouraging positive attitudes toward technology regardless of which school a student attends.
[Copyright © 2004 International Vocational Education and Training Association.]

In this study, the authors investigated the implementation of adopted information technology (IT) policy in representative institutes of the Vocational Training Council in Hong Kong. The article first introduces the context of the government’s 1997 IT initiative. It then reviews the literature on generally acknowledged advantages and limitations of IT in education. Next, the research methodology is briefly set out. In the study, the authors attempted to achieve a degree of triangulation by employing instruments from both the positivist and subjectivist paradigms, namely, questionnaire surveys of current staff-student IT use, and focused interviews with lecturing staff concerning personal evaluations of the project’s viability. Quantitative findings suggest some initial movement in the desired direction, but the qualitative data call for skepticism. It was concluded, therefore, that full implementation will be far from unproblematic.
[Copyright © 1999 International Vocational Education and Training Association.]