Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the dilemmas facing Hong Kong vice-principals in discharging their roles and to further explore their engagement in informal mentoring as a coping mechanism in the absence of a structured professional development program. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative study was conducted in the form of in-depth face-to-face, loosely structured individual interviews with ten informants from a variety of personal and school backgrounds, contributing to a set of data that unveiled the basic themes. Findings – Three dilemmas facing Hong Kong vice-principals were identified: juggling administrative work with teaching, standing by management or siding with peer teachers, and forced innovation vs omnipresent conservatism. The findings also suggested that the informants tended toward external resources intentionally with a view to gaining emotional support as well as professional stimulation. They also engaged in informal mentoring, which took the form of observing principals’ behaviors, joining support groups organized by school governing bodies, and enrolling in academic programs offered by universities and/or professional bodies, as a way to resolve the dilemmas. Research limitations/implications – Informal mentoring has been identified as an effective approach for Hong Kong vice-principals to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to overcome workplace challenges and the feelings of loneliness experienced upon changing their role. The findings point to the importance of formalizing mentoring in vice-principal development programs. Originality/value – This study is the first of its kind to explore the impact of informal mentoring on vice-principals in Hong Kong where both dual-career track systems and a structured mentoring programs are missing. Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

This chapter aims to examine the unique challenging policy environment confronting Hong Kong schools from the perspective of neoliberal discourse and to reveal the reactive, as well as strategic responses of school leaders and teachers in coping with these challenges. As we argue, driven by the global trend of striving for international competitiveness in education and economy, Hong Kong's schooling is no exception to other systems that manifest signs of neoliberal normalization. Based on a systematic and critical analysis of the history and socio-political context of Hong Kong's public schools, this chapter discusses the major challenges faced by these schools which are inflicted by neoliberal discourses of reform, namely school governance, privatization, budget cuts, and performativity. The results of our analysis show that Hong Kong has not followed suit the western trajectory of neoliberal development but has developed its own path in response to its unique historical, cultural, and economic context. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis.

This article refers to the case of the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) in Hong Kong to engage empirically in a debate over school choice. Based on a survey of 910 parents of primary school-leavers on their considerations in making school choices for their children, our analysis shows that DSS schools as an educational option are essentially exclusive to high-income parents, and that DSS schools are opted for as an alternative for the instrumental reason of having higher chances of getting into university rather than such claimed educational reasons as providing students with innovative design of curricula, pedagogies, and assessments.
[Copyright of Journal of School Choice is the property of Routledge.]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the neoliberal challenges and problems facing public schools in the particular Hong Kong context.Design/methodology/approach: Based on a systematic and critical analysis on the history and socio-political context of Hong Kong's school policies and practice as well as the official documents and statistics, this paper examines the impacts of neoliberalism in four main aspects of school education in Hong Kong: school governance, accountability, privatization and government expenditure.Findings: Convergence, as well as deviation, on neoliberal globalization occurs in the particular Hong Kong context. School bureaucracy has irresistibly expanded. Policymakers have placed increasing emphasis on instrumentally evaluating schools while decentralizing, diversifying and privatizing education. School leadership has become focused solely on succeeding within those imposed performance management and metrics, pulling ahead of school competitions and prioritizing easily quantifiable and measurable tasks. Teachers have faced a potential threat from the loss of autonomy through the market logic and consumerist metrics. The rise of privatized education has further intensified school practices based on competitiveness and performativity. On the other hand, resource cutbacks and financial constraints – problems that are generally inflicted by neoliberal discourse – have rarely occurred in Hong Kong.Research limitations/implications: This study is part of concerted efforts in research that adopts the comparative and critical perspectives emerging from different social contexts to consider and flesh out how neoliberalism look across the school systems, how it challenges the systems differently, and how it evokes various responses from within the systems (Apple, 2001). Taken all the efforts together, a finely nuanced understanding of the trails of neoliberalism can help collectively re-discover school education as a social good

New vice-principals (VPs) inevitably experience high levels of uncertainty when assuming the position, and undergo a process of socialisation, involving engaging with both professional and relational sources of support in schools, to adjust to their changing role. Drawing on socialisation theories, this exploratory study proposes that novice VPs would rely on the school's structural feedback mechanism, peer affirmation and principal's sponsorship in their adaptation process; the first of these is professionally oriented whereas the remaining two are relationally oriented. The study further argues that VPs would experience varying degrees of dependence on these factors corresponding to the stage of their development in the socialisation process. Findings of the study, informed by a Hong Kong data set covering VPs in their first, second, and third years of tenure respectively, support these propositions. Peer affirmation appears to be a continuous source of support to VPs in all tenure groups and it stands at odds with principal's sponsorship. The effects of the structural feedback mechanism and principal's sponsorship on VP's transition are only evident in the 2-year group, with the former being positive and the latter negative. Implications of the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge.]

Following the international trend in education towards democracy and decentralization, the Hong Kong government introduced a school-based management (SBM) system about two decades ago. It is widely recognized in the literature that decentralization, empowering school level management and marginalizing the influence of the intermediate level of governance, can result in better deployment of school resources and better meet the demands of various stakeholders. However, in the unique historical and cultural context of Hong Kong, the advantages of decentralization claimed in the literature have yet to be fully realized. This paper discusses the contextual factors affecting the implementation of SBM in Hong Kong, and examines their impact on four major stakeholders, namely the government, the principals, the teachers, and the parents in the wake of reform.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2015.1056592]

This paper examines the criteria used by recruiting bodies to assess potential candidates for the post of principal of a secondary school in Hong Kong. A quantitative methodology is used to identify what recruiters seek in applicants. The expectations that recruiters have when assessing applicants can be seen as a form of proxy for the elements they consider would constitute a successful principal. Data were collected from school superintendents who had served as selection panel members. The findings confirm a four-factor set of expectations sought from applicants; these are Generic Managerial Skills; Communication and Presentation Skills; Knowledge and Experience; and Religious Value Orientation. The diversity of the backgrounds of the school superintendents was also explored. An understanding of the selection criteria may inform policy-makers and practitioners and improve the selection of candidates.
[Copyright of International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory and Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2011.617838 ]

Schools in Hong Kong have been operating in a fast changing external environment in the last two decades; not only have they had to follow the international trend of implementing various educational reform initiatives but they also have had to adjust to the social changes brought about by the transfer of political governance. These changes have led to new expectations of the roles of school leaders and the ways potential leaders are prepared for these roles. This article reviews the development of leadership preparation in Hong Kong and explores future development opportunities, taking into consideration the unique nature of Chinese culture and the history of Hong Kong.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2011.560601]