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.]

In Hong Kong, there is an acute need to provide newly appointed principals with opportunities for continuous professional development so that they could face the impact of reforms and globalization on school development. The Education Bureau has commissioned the tertiary institutions to provide structured professional development courses to cater for the needs of aspiring, newly appointed and serving principals for leadership development. This paper aims to report on an exploratory qualitative study regarding the perception of 32 newly appointed principals from secondary schools on (a) their role as a new principal and (b) their needs and expectations on the school leadership development programme so that contents of existing development programmes could be improved to meet their needs. Findings demonstrated that the newly appointed principals expected to be equipped with the administrative skills of human resources management such as empowering middle leaders and handing underperforming staff; the practical technique of financial management; the skills of dealing with legal matters regarding school management and the capacities of curriculum and instructional leadership. In addition, they attributed networking with peers and working with mentors as invaluable experience and support for their early years’ principalship.
[Copyright © 2015 The Author(s).]

In Hong Kong, many school principals outsourced their extra curricular activities to reduce the workload of teachers and provide more activity options for students. This study reports on a qualitative study aiming at examining the views of a group of sixteen teaching professionals from ten primary schools in Hong Kong on the effectiveness as well as the major concerns about outsourcing extra curricular activities. Findings indicate that three themes emerged from the data regarding effectiveness of outsourcing extra curricular activities to external organizations including (1) reducing teachers workload and cost saving, (2) enhancing the expertise of teachers, and (3) catering for the needs of both parents and students. On the contrary, the major concerns about outsourcing activities were (1) increasing administrative duties, (2) quality of the activities, (3) linking activities to school curricula, and (4) student discipline. It is recommended that school, government and parent representatives be involved in monitoring outsourcing activities.

Before the return of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Hong Kong had always been described as "a borrowed place, a borrowed time." The society was highly depoliticized that little attention was paid to civic education before 1980s. But in response to the social, political, and constitutional changes caused by the return of sovereignty, the Hong Kong Education Department had published two Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools in 1985 and 1996. The intention was to equip the youth of Hong Kong to face the challenges ahead. This chapter compares the two Guidelines with reference to aims and objectives, ideologies, conceptual framework, and focus of the content. It can be concluded that at least at the curriculum document level, civic education in Hong Kong has made a big step forward, in responding to the social and political challenges. But a lot has to been done on implementation so as to make the practice in schools successful.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

The development of civic education in Hong Kong can be categorized into three phases: before 1985, after 1985, and post 1997. Despite the fact that civic education has a long history in Hong Kong, it is criticized that it has never been successfully implemented. Civic education is described as a sort of subject political education before 1985. Since the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in 1984, education has become politicized and two guidelines on civic education were introduced in 1985 and 1996, respectively. This chapter intends to study and describe how civic education has been developed in specific social and political contexts of Hong Kong. It also points out that civic education beyond 1997 should focus on nationalistic education, human rights education, and education for democracy.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

In Hong Kong, aspiring and newly appointed principals are required to have a good mastery of leadership capacities for the new paradigm of education development in the 21st century. This paper aims to examine the perceptions of 188 aspiring principals on the applicability of the leadership capacities they are equipped with in the principalship training programme to their leadership positions in their schools. A questionnaire consisting of 24 questions in six core areas of leadership was constructed and mailed to the sample two years after they were awarded the Certificate for Principalship. The findings demonstrated that most of the participants perceived the leadership capacities of 'strategic direction and policy environment' and 'quality assurance and accountability' to be more applicable to their leadership positions in school than those of 'teacher professional growth and development', 'external communication and connection to the outside world', 'learning, teaching and curriculum' and 'staff and resources management'.
[Copyright © 2014 International Studies in Educational Administration (Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration & Management (CCEAM)).]

This paper attempts to describe recent development of home-school relations in Hong Kong. It is stressed in the Education Commission Report No. 7 that school authority should be in partners with parents to manage the schools. However, findings of the Study on Home-School Cooperation (ED, 1994) demonstrate that there are a lot of barriers in promoting parental involvement in schools. Thus, this paper also serves to introduce a school-based strategy for promoting home-school cooperation. Through examining and analysing the degree of parental involvement at each level in a school, suitable strategies will be developed to strengthen means of facilitating teachers to involve parents in the schooling process of the students.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]