The last decade has witnessed a sharp decrease of school-aged children in the East-Asia and Pacific regions. In some affected districts in Hong Kong, for example, the insufficient student enrolment has brought to school closure. Teacher job satisfaction and principal leadership approaches have been greatly affected. In response to the situation, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong launched the Voluntary Optimisation of Class Structure Scheme (hereafter the Scheme) to cushion the shock and to lower the risk of secondary school closures. There are 220 schools participate in the Scheme involving around 12,000 principals and teachers. The Scheme has direct implications on the number of class structure and teacher career advancement. The negative impacts of the Scheme on teacher job satisfaction has since been widely discussed. Yet, there has no parallel research attention been given to this situation. This doctoral study is the first of its kind to conduct a systematic investigation into the impact of the Scheme on teacher job satisfaction looking at both the individual and contextual factors. Mixed methods include semi-structured interviews and questionnaire survey were employed. Multiple Regression analyses were performed to examine the impacts of the Scheme on principal leadership and teacher job satisfaction. Additionally, the predictive factors of principal leadership for teacher job satisfaction were determined. Based on the empirical data, this presentation will discuss the obstacles and success factors of the implementation of Scheme for teacher job satisfaction. Recommendations will be made for addressing the problem in terms of principal leadership and policy enactment.

Curriculum reform with a school-based approach is often assumed to offer schools and teachers autonomy at the site level, thus enabling them to develop a school-based curriculum and pedagogies to better fit the needs of students. Over the past decade, school-based curriculum development in Hong Kong has encountered issues that deserve worldwide attention and discussion. By reviewing the experiences of two schools in Hong Kong and drawing on international evidence, this study identifies key challenges and difficulties in school-based curriculum reform in three areas. Intellectually, there is a lack of a strong and broad shared knowledge base for curriculum development. As a result, most school-based curriculum initiatives have been piecemeal, fragmented and shallow. Structurally, many teachers have wasted time ‘re-inventing the wheel’ when developing school-based curricula. This effort has left them without sufficient time and energy to be effective in teaching. Culturally, reliance on school management to steer school-based reforms has prevented the development of a new culture in which teachers have the autonomy to make changes in their daily practices. Without cultural changes, curriculum reforms are not sustainable or effective. This study proposes a cooperative platform that integrates the strengths of central intelligence and school-based initiatives to maximise support for curriculum development at the teacher, school-site and system levels.
[Copyright © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.]

Teachers have had to face a number of difficulties when school-based assessment (SBA) was introduced for most subjects of the New Secondary School curriculum in Hong Kong from 2009. This paper draws on data from a project that supports the implementation of rubrics in inquiry learning for the subject of Liberal Studies. It aims at studying the way the use of rubrics enables teachers to address the challenges of SBA and at identifying useful strategies to address these challenges. The project invited ten secondary schools in which thirty-six teachers and more than 400 students were involved. Data were collected from teachers, students and classroom observations. The paper formulates four strategies by which rubrics are used to enhance the implementation of SBA, namely increasing the validity of assessment, diagnosing students’ learning needs, providing a supportive and non-competitive assessment environment, and enabling students to develop a personal learning path.
[Copyright © 2010 James Nicholas Publishers.]

School-based approach is a major attempt of education reforms to enhance and improve school performance and to meet the high demand of quality education in the society (Caldwell & Spinks, 2013; Cheng, 2015; Griffin, McGaw & Care, 2012). Curriculum reform with a school-based approach offers schools and teachers with high professional autonomy and technical flexibility to develop school-based curriculum and pedagogies to better fit the needs of students in the context (Harris, 2003). Although the initiatives of Hong Kong school-based curriculum development in the last decade have produced some successful outcomes (Cheung & Wong, 2011; Yuen, Cheung & Wong, 2012), there have been some challenges worth for further investigation (Cheng, 2014; Lee, 2014). Through reviewing the Hong Kong experiences and related international evidence, this paper has identified the key challenges and difficulties to the curriculum reform in a school-based approach in three aspects. In the intellectual aspects, since there was lack of professional input in developing a strong knowledge base for curriculum development, most school-based curriculum initiatives or innovations were too piecemeal, fragmented and thin. In the structural aspects, as many teachers wasted a lot of time to “re-invent a wheel” or “scratch from beginning in developing school-based curriculum, they did not have sufficient time and energy to be effective in teaching and helping students. Culturally, the reliance on the school management to steer the school-based reforms would create potential conflicts between the senior management and teachers if leaders were not well prepared to do it and change the culture. A cooperative platform integrating central bureaucracy intelligence and school-based initiatives is thus suggested to enhance a balanced development in the future (Cheng, 2005). International implications will be discussed.

Purpose: This paper aims to report a case study of 93 parents’ attitude towards their involvement at various levels of school education in a special school. It also examines the relations between parents’ education backgrounds and different levels of parental involvement. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted quantitative research approach. A questionnaire composed of 30 items under six scales was developed with reference to Ng’s (1999) six–level Model of Home-School Cooperation which was adopted to frame the study. Findings: The study indicates that parents’ inclined to be involved more outside the school including ‘two-way communication’, ‘supervision of children at home’ and ‘participation in parent organizations and activities’ than that inside the school such as ‘volunteering’, ‘providing advice on school policies’ and ‘participating in decision making’. Research limitations/implications: In spite of its small scale in a case-study special school, it does not aim at generalization but illuminate how parental involvement was carried out. Practical implications: The study carries the implications for school management and policy makers when promoting and implementing parental involvement in special schools. Originality/value: For the school personnel, a total and positive relationship could help enhance efficient and effective management of education. Second, more resources should be provided by the Education Bureau for special schools to educate parents and subsidize their involvement. Third, more training opportunities regarding knowledge and skills of parental involvement be provided for frontline teachers.
[Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.]

This paper aims to explore substantive findings from Hong Kong research studies of educational leadership published in core international journals between 1995 and 2014. It employs a systematic research review approach to analysis across a total of 160 published research papers. The review focuses on identifying and key research issue from a clearly delimited body of the relevant papers comprised of empirical, non-empirical and review/synthesis types of studies. The findings of the published papers are then explored and synthesized for any emergent theme as the research issue that might characterize the development of Hong Kong educational leadership in the past two decades. Analysis of the emergent themes is a two-stage process: (1) a comparative mapping of the themes cross the published paper; and (2) and in-depth coding of the themes for unlocking the meanings of the key research issues. The review results illustrate a methodological pattern, a set of key research issues and a research agenda grounded in the substantial findings of the published papers. The discussion highlights the issues of Hong Kong educational leadership the scholars were concerned with, affecting the frontline of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools.

Despite school middle leaders are growing in their importance in the school in recent years, the understanding of their leadership roles and practices are unclear. In addition, the changing expectations of middle leadership lead them into confusion of roles and an unknown space of practice. This paper intends to portrait the conception of middle leadership in schools in light of the teachers' perception and expectation of middle leadership. Data were collected from interviews of four subject department heads/coordinators and five subject teachers who worked with the middle leaders closely in three special schools in Hong Kong. Initial findings show that the middle leaders were struggling with role ambiguity – unclear positioning of work, which led to overloading and frustration in work as they often developed a symptom of doing this and that. Although both the middle leaders and teachers often had high and broad expectations for middle leaders, i.e. excellency in both professional and management duties, it is found that the middle leaders were usually ill-prepared for the multiple roles. The paper concludes that middle leaders have to understand the breadth, depth and substances of middle leadership in school so that they can be prepared well for performing their roles and responsibilities.