The global trend of decentralisation in education empowers schools and teachers to have more autonomy in making instructional decisions. Influenced by the implementation of the new curriculum reform (NCR) and the three-level curriculum management policy in China, teachers supposedly have more authority in curriculum decision-making. Although many studies on curriculum leadership (CL) have been conducted, there is still a scant amount of studies focusing on understanding of teachers’ engagement in CL. This is especially the case in the Chinese setting. This research thus aims to explore principals’ and Teaching Research Group (TRG) leaders’ perceptions of TRG leaders’ engagement in CL and compare their perceptions to explore similarities and differences. TRG leaders are the backbone teachers chosen from the corpus of front-line teachers, therefore, it is critical to investigate their engagement in CL.A qualitative research approach was deployed using interviews, observations, documents and field notes. Interviews were adopted as the main source of data to investigate how 10 principals and 20 TRG leaders understand TRG leaders’ engagement in CL in secondary schools in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data in Nvivo 10.The findings are grouped into five major categories, namely, general understanding of CL; enacting CL at the organisational level; at the classroom level; at the social relationship level; and at the personal level. The study identified that the term CL is rather new to some principals and to most of the TRG leaders. In particular, findings show that TRG leaders’ autonomy in taking initiatives for curriculum matters is limited at all levels although they have been assumed to be taking the role of TRG leader. Importantly, this research developed a conceptual model of TRG leaders’ engagement in CL in the Chinese context which consisted of four dimensions: (1) framing/planning goals at the organisational level

Exploring middle leaders’ attitudes toward religious faith is an important subject for educational researchers. This is the first study to explore the relationships between religious faith, leadership styles, and duties of middle leaders in Catholic Hong Kong primary schools. Although local Catholic school leaders may consider that servant leadership is more compatible with their faith, instructional and servant leadership styles are not mutually exclusive. Leadership practices, roles, and duties are intertwined. Leaders, with or without religious faith, may have a similar impact on their leadership practices, as well as the academic versus non-academic aspects of student outcomes. Therefore, this study examined the tentative variations through the lens of religious faith, the role of leadership, and leadership practices (i.e., servant leadership and instructional leadership). The researcher adopted a case study approach using qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews of two principals, fourteen middle leaders, and four groups of regular teachers (half novice teachers and half experienced teachers) with or without religious faith in two Catholic primary schools. The results indicated that the words of God had a considerable effect on the middle leaders in Catholic primary schools. They could feel the power of faith, hope, and love in their souls and be thus eager to take the lead to serve others. This study contributes to the literature in clarifying the effect of religion on educational leadership styles and practices. Religious faith acts as a chain to connect the inner serving heart and the outer instructional leadership practices. A synergy of the two leadership styles showed empirically more profound effects and practically more admirable than either leadership styles theoretically implied. However, further investigation on such a synergy is warranted for a sustainable school development for all Catholic or religious schools in Hong Kong. All rights

Regional innovation is increasingly dependent on learning from modernization-driven jurisdictions (Caniëls and van den Bosch, Pap Reg Sci 90:271–285, 2011; Schulte, Nordic J Stud Educ Policy:1–13, 2018), and the Province of Guangdong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and Macau Special Administrative Region of China in various ways succeeded to employ experiences and links from advanced economic and education agencies across the globe (Fu, Oxf Dev Stud 36:89–110, 2008; Henning and Ulrike, Asian J Technol Innov 17:101–128, 2009; Cai and Liu, Sci Public Policy 42:1–15, 2014). In this chapter, we are examining how policy alignments oriented at globally-competitive performers have been contributing to innovation and how alignment of economic and education agendas has been driving the emergence of a Greater Bay Area of China (GBAC). In particular, we analyse cross-jurisdictional dynamics seeking to reinforce cumulative advantages for universities in the region. Concurrently, we outline a range of challenges faced by political, economic and education stakeholders in various jurisdictions at times when they are forced for harmonization of policies and agendas. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

A five-year-old kindergarten girl who died of maltreatment in 2018 shocked Hong Kong, bringing up the recommendation on the legislation of “Failure to Protect” offence. The unprecedented increase in domestic violence globally since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made the United Nations Women describe it “shadow pandemic”. The paper aims to explore the new school practice for protecting children from maltreatment under the “shadow pandemic” and “failure to protect” offence from the perspective of teacher education. This paper contributes cutting-edge views on the unprecedented issue. The views of this paper are based on the author’s comparison and professional interpretation. Comparison is made between the 2020 newly revised “Protecting Children from Maltreatment – Procedural Guide for Multi-disciplinary Co-operation” and its previous version. Professional interpretation is generated from the author’s professional experiences. The implication is that school personnel have not effectively reported these cases mainly because of insufficient knowledge to recognise the signs of abuse. It is recommended to strengthen the Family-School-Community Collaboration training of protecting children from maltreatment. Copyright © 2021 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

As with the rest of the world, schools in Hong Kong have undergone a series of educational reforms to raise accountability and quality assurance of education. Schools need to enhance their capability of problem-solving and decision-making for meeting this standard for sustainable development. Intellectual Capital (IC), as an intangible knowledge asset of school organisations, has excellent potential to promote sustainable school improvement. School leaders, teachers, and other staff members ought to realise the value of their knowledge and manage these intangible resources for effective production and application of IC since knowledge management (KM) is the critical strategy for schools to create knowledge assets for the development of IC. This chapter reports a case study of two Hong Kong secondary schools to reveal how school principals can practice KM to generate and apply IC to improve educational performance. Copyright © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Eric C. K. Cheng; individual chapters, the contributors.

This study aims to explore how East Asian flagship universities develop understanding of academic entrepreneurialism, reconsider forms of scholarship and transform the strategic planning of university missions. This study collected data from government and institutional documents related to academic entrepreneurialism and “scholarship of engagement” of University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Seoul National University (SNU) during 2011-2020. This study applied the Critical Discourse Analysis, which explores the relationship between academic entrepreneurial discourse and social structures as dialectic. We found that HKU and SNU present a hybrid image while they are reconsidering the scope and forms of scholarship. Portraying themselves as public institutions, the two East Asian flagship universities emphasize community engagement and social contribution in their pursuit of academic entrepreneurialism. Copyright © 2022 AERA.