In facing the challenges of economic and social developments in the new century, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and the community are making efforts to review and improve school education and teacher education. This report aims to provide an overall description of the background and current situation of the teaching profession and teacher education in Hong Kong; to analyze the existing constraints and challenges in teacher education; and to report ongoing policy review and initiatives for upgrading the teaching profession and improving teacher provision and education. Particularly the report will discuss the professional quality of teaching forces in kindergarten, primary schools and secondary schools, the existing features of teacher qualifications, teacher education programs, and professional development paths, and the characteristics of teacher education institutions and policy making bodies. In the light of existing educational changes towards school-based management and educational quality and effectiveness, the report will report the direction of teacher education review and reform in the new century. It is hoped that the teacher education development in Hong Kong can provide a good case for ongoing policy discussion and teacher education reforms in both local and international communities.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

No matter whether in the context of Hong Kong or other parts of the world, the school reform towards school-based management is a complicated change process involving the multiple school constituencies and creating uncertainties as well as opportunities for them to learn, change, and develop. This paper aims to report and analyze some significant and interesting phenomena observed in the development and implementation of the school-based management policy in Hong Kong. The findings suggest that the school-based management reform is a long-term process of policy development, in which all concerned constituencies can contribute to further define, develop, and shape the policy. Only when the involved actors perceive more positive meanings from the change, they are more effective in creating and using opportunities for development and maximizing all potential benefits from the process of school reform. Hopefully, the Hong Kong case of school-based management can provide useful implications for school-based management movements in both local and international contexts.

Numerous educational change and school reforms have been conducted to pursue educational effectiveness and educational quality in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, most of the past educational reforms with focus on fragmentary improvement and remedial treatment are not sufficient to bring holistic school development and long term effectiveness, and inevitably many of them have experienced serious frustration if not failure. This paper aims to propose a new direction including ten important tendencies for ongoing and future educational reform and school reengineering in Hong Kong and international contexts. The tendencies are: (1) Towards multiple school functions from simplistic purposes; (2) Towards school autonomy and self-initiative through school-based management; (3) Towards school healthy functioning through a knowledge-based profile; (4) Towards school continuous learning and development through strategic management; (5) Towards human initiative through multi-level self management in school; (6) Towards school multiple effectiveness through a dynamic process; (7) Towards holistic education in school through layer management; (8) Towards synergy and effectiveness through congruence in school; (9) Towards total home-school collaboration and community support for resources, ideas, and legitimacy; (10) Towards school driving force through transformational leadership. The educational reforms in this new direction can support schools to facilitate continuous development of students and staff, increase support of parents and community, improve technology in education and management, and pursue multiple functions more effectively at different levels of our society. Hopefully, all those concerned particularly our students and teachers can benefit from the coming educational reforms.

There is a strong need to understand, monitor, and enhance educational quality. This paper reports on a project that developed a framework of indicators for monitoring educational quality in Hong Kong primary schools. The framework was developed through various case studies and 2 large surveys of over 200 Hong Kong primary schools (involving over 650 classes, 3,800 teachers, and 20,000 students) during 1991-95. A preliminary framework, based on the research literature, included indicators at the student individual level, the classroom level, the teacher individual level, the teacher group level, and the organizational level. The framework was tested and developed through the 2 surveys (the first conducted in 1992 and the second in 1993-94) and a total of 12 case studies. Survey data was used to map the education profiles of Hong Kong primary schools by means on indicators; by percentage of schools in high, satisfactory, and low performance; by distribution of schools on each indicator; and by profiles of characteristics of effective and ineffective schools. Six tables and seven figures are included.

This paper will present why and what transformational leadership is needed to pursue school effectiveness and development in the rapidly changing education environment and in the coming new century. First, the challenges to school leadership and the need for new leadership will be discussed in the light of the pursuit of multiple school effectiveness and the worldwide educational reform trends. Based on the recent research on principals' leadership in Hong Kong schools, some important insights will be drawn for leadership development and school development particularly in both local context and international contexts. Then the paper will illustrate the shifts of leadership concepts and explain why transformational leadership is do critical to meeting educational challenges in the changing environment. The conception of transformational leadership and its relationship to school-based management, strategic management, and school effectiveness will be illustrated and explained. Finally, a number of implications will be proposed for school principals to practice transformational leadership and achieve long-term and multiple school effectiveness. Establishing a principal centre for leadership learning and development will be a major direction.

In facing challenges form the rapidly changing educational environment, numerous educational changes and school reforms have been conducted to pursue educational effectiveness and educational quality in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, most of school development, and inevitably have experienced serious frustration if not failure. This speech aims to elaborate the new school functions and meanings emerging in the new century and draw implications for ongoing and future school reforms in both Hong Kong and international contexts. There are five basic school functions including technical/economic function, human/social, political, cultural, and educational functions at the individual, institutional, community, society, and international levels. Based on this, a set of new meanings, values and goals for school development and practice can be established and pursued as the criteria of school effectiveness and quality. Continuous and systematic learning and development of students, staff, and schools is a necessary condition for the dynamic development of local, regional, and international communities. Most of the past educational reforms with focus on fragmentary improvement and remedial treatment are not sufficient to bring holistic school development and long term effectiveness. Integrating my recent research and thinking on school effectiveness and school-based management with the insights from new school functions, I propose a new mechanism for re-engineering schools, facilitating continuous development of students and staff, increasing support of parents and community, improving technology in education and management, and pursuing new functions and meanings more effectively. Hopefully, all those concerned particularly our students and teachers can benefit from the coming educational reforms.
[Copyright © 1996 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

Contemporary practice of school-based management world-wide aims at providing schools with increased autonomy so that they may acquire the necessary flexibility, responsiveness and proactiveness to meet the challenges ahead in the changing external and internal school environment. Theoretically, schools practicing school-based management may therefore be more effective. However, researchers do not have convergent views regarding the effect of school-based management. Some noted very encouraging and positive effects. On the other hand, some observed fairly negative results with the absence of empirical evidence that school-based management is related to students’ educational outcomes. Responding to these observations, Cheung & Cheng (1996a) asserted that the effectiveness of school-based management depends largely on the self management behavior of teachers working in groups and individually. In order to maximize the benefit of school-based management, key actors should practice self management cycles at the school, group and teacher levels. This paper discusses how the practice of this self management framework could facilitate the school, groups and individual teachers in continuous self learning and development, and in turn enhance multi-level performance in school. Taking the practice of School Management Initiative (SMI – as one type of school-based management) in Hong Kong schools as an example, the paper first analyses the recommendations set out in the SMI policy document. Then the authors examine the degree to which these recommendations could facilitate multi-level self management of the key actors in school. Based on the result of the analysis and the conception of Cheung & Cheng (1996a), the paper proposes directions for further development of school-based management in Hong Kong. It is hoped that the recommended directions may provide insights for both the policy makers and school practitioners to further develop the practice of school-based management