It has been estimated that over 37,000 students with special educational needs (SEN) study in ordinary mainstream school in Hong Kong, with an average of 37 students with SEN in a school. Since 1997, inclusive practice in Hong Kong has been implemented with great determination and wide school coverage. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, in his 2015 Policy Address, further announced a HK$200 million three-year programme titled "Provision of funding for ordinary schools to arrange special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs)". Taken together with the previous policy implemented by the Education Bureau in 2008, of funding additional leadership positions in shaping school-wide development in inclusive education, it has become clear that the SENCOs will play an increasingly important role in strengthening the implementation of inclusive education (IE) in Hong Kong. By using qualitative semi-structured interviews of the SENCO, school principal and six students from each participating school in this pilot study, this paper explored effects of the new SENCOs’ role on and values added to inclusive practices in support of special educational needs in the pilot schools in contrast to the current practices in non-pilot schools. The contextual difference in support of SEN by the pilot and non-pilot schools was particularly noted. Preliminary findings that have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of SENCO’s role, responsibilities and support in the pilot schools that could provide empirical evidences of defining value-added inclusive practices will be discussed.

This study examined the self-efficacy of TAs in Hong Kong. Quantitative method was adopted. 463 TAs had participated in this study, and their self-efficacy had been tested in 5 domains: teaching support, learning support, behavior management, cooperation and administrative support. The findings were obtained by the means of “Teaching assistant efficacy scale” which was developed by Yan, Lum, Lui, Chu and Lui (2015). Data indicated that TAs were most confident in cooperation and least confident in teaching support and behaviour management. Training to support students with special education needs (SEN) were found to contribute to TAs’ self-efficacy in all 5 domains. However, no differences were found among different training hours because the training cannot meet the needs of TA. This paper suggested reforming the TA training program to increase TAs’ self-efficacy.

The Hong Kong government proposed a three-year pilot project of arranging a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) in the schools. Using this new policy as a case study, this study aims to develop a better understanding of inclusive education policy in a Chinese context and to identify what concerns of this policy in practice that can help the implementation of policy change. This presentation uses critical discourse analysis to analyse the government policy papers and the responses from the public based on multiple sources. The findings suggest that this policy attempts to satisfy both the economic and educational needs together. Yet, there is a gap between the expectations of the government and understanding of the community. Future research is recommended to explore and gain broad and in-depth understandings of added values and effects of SENCOs’ role on inclusive practices in the pilot schools in contrast to those existing provisions.

Although worldwide practices of inclusive education aim to provide equal learning opportunities for students with special educational needs (SEN) to support their learning performance in schooling, comparatively less is known about these students' competences in preparing and achieving their post-secondary school outcomes. This study extended previous research on testing ordinary secondary students' career development self-efficacy to the population of students with special educational needs. Participants were grades 9 to 12 SEN students in Hong Kong. Eight types of SEN were included. The Career Development Self-Efficacy Inventory (CE-SEI) assessed five key domains of career development self-efficacy (i.e., career planning, career goal setting, training selection, job hunt preparation, and job hunting). The confirmatory factor analysis supported the consistency of internal structure of this instrument in SEN students. The correlation analysis showed statistically significant correlations among the five key factors of career development. This study has practical implications to help school stakeholders to develop effective career guidance to support SEN students by using this validated short form of CE-SEI as a useful screening tool to diagnose pre-existing problems of SEN students' career development self-efficacy. Implications of this study are also discussed in relation to current implementation of career guidance and lifelong education policy in secondary schools.

By integrating family functioning and parents’ evaluation of self-determination of students with special educational needs (SEN), this study tests parents’ attitudes towards inclusive education in Hong Kong.

This study investigated changes in teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practice using a mixed method research design. Participants were 417 in-service teachers in Hong Kong taking a 1-week basic teacher-training course about inclusive education. Data were collected pre and post participation in the course using the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices Scale (TEIP). A series of five in-depth focus-group interviews provided greater clarification of the perceptions and efficacy issues of teachers. The best predictors to participants’ teaching self-efficacy were confidence in teaching students with special education needs (SEN) and knowledge of legislation and policies for inclusive practice. From the focus-groups, results demonstrated a more positive attitude change towards students with SEN with a number of essential factors emerging as highly beneficial for inclusive teaching in Hong Kong (i.e. caring and love, school environment and curriculum adaption). The discussion considers the role of short training programmes as an appropriate means to improving self-efficacy for teaching within inclusive classrooms in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2016 Taylor & Francis.]

在香港，「適應有困難」學生是一類有特殊教育需要的兒童，其問題與需要，與其他特殊兒童比較，性質不同。本文主要從適應有困難定義、教育服務、學位轉介、規劃等方面，探討為這類學生提供的服務與困難，並剖析學生的問題特徵及學習需要。面對服務轉型，文章亦探討群育學校新拓展的計劃，並討論其特色、啟示與深遠意義。結論指出群育學校教師需要裝備自己，迎接新的挑戰。
[Copyright © 2000 The Save the Children Fund (Hong Kong).]