The School Management Initiative (SMI) is a school-based management (SBM) reform in Hong Kong schools. Reviews on studies of implementation obstacles and strategies of school-based management were huge (e.g. Ornstein, 1983; Wholstetter & Odden, 1992; Leithwood & Menzies, 1996) but experiences from Hong Kong might be ignored. Viewing from multiple perspectives of organizational theory, viz., the structural perspective, the human resource perspective, the political perspective, and the cultural perspective, this paper reviews past literature on SBM researches and reform studies of local schools to identify obstacles and strategies that are applicable to the implementation of the SMI scheme. In terms of the structural perspective, some SMI schools still take the form of Administrative Control hindering the progress of the other two forms, Professional Control SBM and Community Control SBM, because the control of schools are still retained by school sponsoring bodies (SSB). There may remain no clear accountability and role in some schools for key actors who hang onto traditional roles especially for the SSB, the school management committee and the school supervisor. The lack of common goals for key stakeholders in some schools is also an implementation obstacle. The strategies identified to be useful to cope with such obstacles are: to enforce clearer role and accountability on actors at different levels, including government departments, SSB, and site level management; to create participative decision making structure; and to build up common school goals accepted by key stakeholders. For the human resource perspective, obstacles spotted are: the rapid staff turnover in schools with unfavorable conditions; stakeholders' lack of adequate skills and knowledge; the increased stress and pressure on teachers and administrators due to more involvement in school management and appraisal system; and the insufficient time and resources available for teaching and related work. The

With the introduction of School Management Initiative (SMI) in Hong Kong schools in recent years, teachers' participation in decision making becomes one of the main themes in school management. By employing a model made of three dimensions, namely decision domain, decision level and decision involvement pattern, this study aims to investigate the patterns, processes and consequences of teachers' participation in decision making in SMI schools. The research adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods in studying two secondary SMI schools. A questionnaire was developed to survey teachers' involvement pattern of making decisions on the issues of technical and managerial domains at individual, group and school levels. 19 teachers from a SMI school participated in a pilot study to test the reliability and validity of the instrument. After a slight revision of the questionnaire as a result of the pilot study, teachers from the two subject schools participated in the questionnaire survey. A total of 105 copies of the questionnaire were distributed through a teacher at each of the two subject schools and there were 84 valid responses giving a return rate of 80 percent. Then the two principals and fourteen teachers from the two subject schools were interviewed to collect information for validating the results of involvement pattern obtained in the questionnaire survey and for studying the processes and consequences of participative decision making. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed into verbatim. Besides, documentary analysis on school profiles, plans, reports and magazines provided information supplementary to the interviews. Quantitative data were run with the statistical package of SPSS for Windows 6.1" while qualitative data were analyzed with the prepared theoretical framework. The results suggested the following points: 1. Teachers were more actively participated and more satisfied with the conditions for making decision after their schools

This chapter aims to construct a comprehensive framework for conceptualizing and analyzing the nature, scope, and issues of curriculum change and development so as to inform practice and policy-making. In the first part of the chapter, three important concepts, namely, globalization, localization, and individualization, are delineated and then operationalized for improving the relevancy and values of curriculum. The second part presents a new structure of curriculum effectiveness to conceptualize the complex, dynamic relationships among the various essential components of curriculum at the different stages of the teaching and learning processes. Further, some specific recommendations are proposed for studying, developing, and improving multi-level curriculum effectiveness. Finally, the chpater discusses and compares three approaches to developing teacher competence and conducting curriculum change. It is hoped that the comprehensive framework and related concepts are helpful to policy-making and curriculum change and development in Hong Kong and other parts of the world.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Towards the 21st Century, the educational environment is changing at a very rapid rate and the roles and responsibilities of teachers are becoming more complex and demanding in most parts of the world. As teachers are the key actor for education quality and school effectiveness, there is an urgent need to understand the complex nature of teacher performance and develop the necessary teacher education and development programs for them. This paper aims to report the development of a multi-dimensional framework of teacher performance and draw implications for restructuring teacher education. Traditionally, studies on teacher performance and effectiveness focused mainly on the instructional behaviors of teachers, particular at the classroom level. This simplistic conception has limitations and the findings of these studies often cannot provide comprehensive implications for improving teacher education for the new century. Based on the results of an empirical study involving 789 teachers in 99 work groups of 46 primary schools in Hong Kong, this paper developed a five-dimensional framework of teacher performance, including technical performance, human performance, political performance, cultural performance, and renewal performance. - Technical performance refers to teachers' performance in planning and organizing curricular materials, classroom management, delivering instructions and presenting materials. - Human performance refers to teachers' performance in developing human relationships, providing social supports and attending students' motivation at classroom level. - Political performance refers to teachers' performance in using social power, resolving and managing conflicts in classroom. - Cultural performance refers to teacher's performance in developing shared goals for students, transforming students' values and norms to support active learning and collaboration in classrooms. - Renewal performance refers to teacher's performance in self-learning, reflection, and