This paper compares the development and placement of teacher education within the tertiary sectors of Japan and Hong Kong. Historically both places initiated formal teacher education separate from university training as part of binary systems, and later moved teacher training to the university sector. Here Hong Kong lags behind Japan, having only recently moved towards creating an all-graduate, all-trained teaching force. Both places retain mono-technical teacher training institutions along side teacher training within comprehensive universities. Both societies are involved in major educational and curriculum reforms in order to respond to both the economic challenges of globalization, and social ills attributed in part to the failure of their educational systems. These reforms are closely linked to the quality (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of teachers. In this regard both Japan and Hong Kong have instituted teacher education reforms. At the same time, demographic realities have significantly lowered the demand for teachers. This has led both governments to try to reduce the size of publicly supported teacher education programs, primarily through pressure for consolidation of existing programs. Research on mergers indicates that these processes are more costly than usually expected, and may not result in the economy and efficiency that often drives the process to begin with. This paper concludes that it is important to initiate merger processes with care, and not to sacrifice other important goals (such as innovative approaches to the production of high quality teachers) in the course of consolidation.
[Copyright © 2004 Center for the Studies of Higher Education, Nagoya University.]

The paper reviews the issues and challenges presented by a new emphasis on civic education in the wake of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereighty after 155 years of British colonial rule. After providing a historical overview of the development of civic education in Hong Kong, the paper focuses on the implementation of the new Guidelines for Civic Education in Schools and the introduction of a new subject of civic education for junior secondary schools in 1998. It then examines the implications of the proposed changes in curriculum for the preparation of competent of civic education teachers at Hong Kong Institute of Education, the major provider of teachers in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 1998 Pacific Circle Consortium for Education.]

This study compares the development and placement of teacher education within the tertiary education in Japan and Hong Kong. Historically both places initiated formal teacher education separate from university training as part of binary systems, and later moved teacher training into the university secotr. Both places retain mono-technical teacher training institutions along side teacher training within comprehensive universities. Both societies are involved in major educational reforms in order to respond to the economic challenges of globalization and current social ills attributed to shortcomings in the educational system. These reforms are closely linked to improving the quality (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of teachers. At the same time, demographic realities have significantly lowered the demand for teachers in both societies, and both governments are under pressure to reduce the scope of teacher education programs, primarily through institutional consolidation. Research on mergers indicates that these processes are more costly than usually expected, and may not result in the economy and efficiency that often drives the process to begin with. This paper concludes that is important to initiate merger processes with care, and not to sacrifice other important goals (such as innovative approaches to the production of high quality teachers) in the course of consolidation.

The findings presented here are derived from a subset of data from a larger study, the Global Concerns Study (GCS). GCS was a two-year study (1999-2001) that addressed the following question: What do pre-servi ce and in -service social studies teachers in Hong Kong, southern China, and Minnesota consider to be the most important citizenship and environmental issues that need to be addressed in the 21st century? This paper reports and compares survey results from the two Chinese samples., reporting on what a sample of educators in the nearby but politically and economically separate cities of Hong Kong and Guangzhou think are the ideal characteristics of future citizens. With the historical events that divide the two cities, the author finds different emphases, but also a common tendency in both places to emphasizes the less political and controversial elements of citizenship education. Despite some ambiguities, the findings of this study are consistent with other findings of a tendency in both Hong Kong and China to prioritise the non-political dimensions of citizenship education. There is enough congruence in the findings for the two samples to suggest that there are strong common cultural themes that overcome radically different historical experience in the past 150 years. At the same time there is enough evidence of difference in emphasis to suggest that even with cities in such close proximity these historical and social forces have had some impact. Whether this evidence of future divergence or convergence, or perhaps a combination of both, it is too early to say.