This paper first reviews the key changes in early childhood education that was proposed by the Hong Kong Government in the year 2000, including promoting the competence of early childhood education professional, formulating a quality assurance system to improve the quality of the education to be provided to children, diversifying means to subsidize parents to send their children to a childcare centre or kindergarten, standardizing the operations between childcare centres and kindergartens, and facilitating children's transition from early childhood education to primary schooling. Covered next are what have so far been done on those proposed changes, along with commenting on issues/problems that have arisen.
[Copyright © The Hong Kong Institute of Education].

Moving towards the end of colonial rule and socio-political transition, educational practitioners and researchers have witnessed unprecedented challenge and rapid development of education in Hong Kong and Macau. This symposium, conducted by HKIEd colleagues with experience in teaching and research in Macau and Hong Kong institutions, will examine and compare some recent patterns of development and school problems and related issues within/across the two systems of education in terms of curriculum changes in early childhood and primary education, teacher education, school administration and policy, nature and equivalence or recognition of academic qualifications, juvenile delinquency, expenditure and improvement of equity and quality in education, etc.