The aim of this Quality Education Fund project was to set up a school network for teachers to have a platform for an interactive exchange of ideas, resources, services, and expertise among different schools that mutually address the needs of children with dyslexia in Hong Kong. A number of five primary schools were invited to participate in this project. Each school was requested to identify an area of concern in reading or writing for research and development. Each school also designed a 10-week teaching programme for children with dyslexia for the try-out of the chosen area of concern. The identified areas included story-telling for word identification, summarization for reading comprehension, recognition of word functions for writing, use of five senses for sentence making and co-teaching for teaching word recognition. A 5-day cross-site visitation was held among the five member schools during the implementation of the teaching programmes. Individual interviews were conducted for principals and teachers of member schools to evaluate the effectiveness of the network. It was found that teachers of member schools benefitted from the experience sharing in the immediate discussion after each peer observation. The most significant finding was that the motivation of the students was enhanced and their reading and writing skills were improved.

Parents are key stakeholders in education and their support is pivotal to policy implementation. Through a large-scale survey, the present study investigated the validity of a structural model describing the relationship between attitude, knowledge, and perceived social norm among parents of children with special needs. Results revealed that knowledge and perceived social norm were powerful predictors of parents' attitudes towards inclusion and the two predictors were intercorrelated. Exploratory analyses on the effect of demographic variables on parents' attitudes demonstrated that male parents exhibited more positive attitudes towards inclusion than female parents; and parents of children at a higher grade level indicated less positive attitudes. Cultural issues of parents' concerns about inclusive practice are discussed.
[Copyright of International Journal of Inclusive Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2015.1037866]

The aim of the programme was to deliver a field-based mode of training for teachers in special schools and to set up a school cluster system for teachers to have a platform for an interactive exchange of ideas, resources, services, and expertise among different schools that mutually addressed the needs of children with special needs. During the training period, lectures, observation of demonstrations and cross-site visitations were held. From 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2009, a number of 12 school clusters were organized. Members in a school cluster included lecturers from the institute of education, specialist professionals of the supporting schools and teachers of participating schools. A total of four insittute lecturers and 26 school teachers participated in this programme as trainers. The number of trainees was 101. The responses from participants of supporting and participating schools were very positive. They believed that this mode could enhance the application of new teaching techniques into their own classroom or school settings.
[Copyright © 2010 The Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.]

The principle of educating students with special educational needs in the least restrictive settings renders a rapid growth of the population of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in ordinary schools in the last decade. This change has caused a concern to teachers in ordinary schools. To equip teachers in ordinary schools with the knowledge and skills in dealing with special edu-cational needs, different tiers of professional development programs have been developed. The problem is that these programs are mainly short-term and direct top-down transmission in nature. The lack of opportunity to try out the newly acquired knowledge and skills in real environments cannot give sufficient confi-dence to teachers to work with students with ASD independently. This chapter discusses the effectiveness of a current professional development (PD) program for teachers of students with ASD in Hong Kong SAR. A collaborative mode of PD is recommended that can assist teachers to gain hands-on experience in a field-based training program.

The importance of school-institute partnerships for professional development is widely acknowledged by many studies. Through partnership, tertiary institutions can gain access to schools’ teaching practices, while schools can gain new ideas and knowledge. Such collaboration not only ensures teacher development but also makes action research feasible, which in turn promotes teaching and learning effectiveness in schools. The resultant school improvement is notable in the achievement of high quality education in Hong Kong. This chapter describes the successful experience of building a professional partnership in staff development between The Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Shanghai School for the Blind. Although there are dissimilarities in terms of vision, mission and target students between the two partners, the collaborative arrangement was found to be workable as a result of the explicit aims and shared goals. The experience gained in the partnership was meaningful and productive. Sharing responsibilities between partners not only minimized misunderstandings but also maximized the sense of involvement and contribution of the partners. The conclusion highlights the essential elements of a successful partnership, that is, mutuality, trust and reciprocal benefit (Anderson & Cheung, 1999; Fullan, Erskine-Cullen, & Watson, 1995; Goodlad, 1985; Osguthorpe, Harris, Black, Cutler, & Harris, 1995).
[Copyright © 2004 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of using computer and flash cards to present the reading stimulus materials to children with learning disabilities. Twenty children from Years 4 and 5 (at the ages of 10 and 11) were selected by their teachers with the criterion being that they were judged as having difficulties in reading. These children were enrolled in the Intensive Remedial Teaching Programme for Children with Learning Difficulties (IRTP), Integrated Classes or Remedial Programmes of the New Funding Mode. A total of 20 studetns from two Hong Kong primary schools were recruited for the study. The students in each school were randomly divided into two groups. One group of the students learned to read under the computer-based programme and that of the other group under the flash card programme. The stimulus materials of this study were three lists of Chinese characters. Each list consisted of 30 characters with similar orthographic features. This training programme lasted for six weeks. Comparison of the test results showed that the students in the computer-based programme outperformed those in the flash card programme.

This paper reports on research through four case studies of Integrated Education in Hong Kong schools that aimed to provide a better understanding about the integration process, what the barriers are, how they might be overcome and how Integrated Education might further facilitate quality education. The study used five research questions that framed the results. Case Study methodology involving interviews, open-ended questionnaires, examining school documents, observations and their analyses was used. Findings led to a cross analysis which showed emergent commonalities and unique features. Results include findings that co-teaching led to effective teaching; parent involvement is a key factor, and social interaction and Whole School Approach schemes are very supportive of Integrated Education. Common teacher education needs were identified. Implications for education and research are made.