Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the international mobility of mainland students in special administrative regions of China and in places outside China.Design/methodology/approach - There have been studies using the framework of push–pull and reverse push–pull factors to explore the movement of mainland students to North America, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. This study follows up by exploring such research directions in Macau, which is another special administrative region of China. Different from previous studies, the sample of this study came specifically from 130 students enrolling in teacher education undergraduate programs in Macau.Findings - In this study, using data collected from questionnaires and interviews, the factors affecting mainland student teachers’ choice of Macau as a place for their undergraduate studies are examined. Other related issues such as the challenges these students face and their intentions after their graduation are also studied.Originality/value - The data collected for this study were primary and original, drawing specifically from students enrolling teacher education programs. Following the various studies on the global movement of mainland students, this study aimed at understanding mainland students’ mobility pattern in one of China’s special administration regions, Macau. In this regard, cultural identity and cultural factors were considered on top of other factors. Copyright © 2019 Emerald Publishing Limited.

This article reports a comparative study on the reasons for pre-service student teachers becoming teachers in Hong Kong and Macau. The study adopted a mixed methods research design, with 459 and 137 student teachers completing a questionnaire on teaching motivation and 35 and 15 student teachers joining a follow-up interview in Hong Kong and Macau, respectively. The study found that student teachers in both societies share commonality in their altruistic and intrinsic motivations, i.e. a sense of vocation. The difference in student teachers’ motivation reflects the contrasting perceptions of teachers’ work and the teaching profession in connection with the different educational systemic factors in Macau and Hong Kong. Government-initiated quantitative expansion and quality enhancement in education set the backdrop of an aspiring teaching profession with promising prospects as perceived by the student teachers in Macau. In contrast, the move towards "centralized-decentralization" with a focus on excellence, competition and accountability in education at a time of teacher surplus results in a demanding profession with gloomy prospects as perceived by the Hong Kong student teachers. These differences add to our understanding of how the development trajectories of different education systems and teaching professions influence young people’s motivation to become teachers in different societies. The study also provides insights for initial teacher education and offers suggestions for the education communities of the two societies. Copyright © 2018 Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the progress of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong in the implementation phase from 2001-2006, with the agreement and support of heads and teachers on the reform. Design/methodology/approach – Survey questionnaires and focus group interviews were used to collect data from various stakeholders. A stratified random sampling method was employed to select 150 primary schools and 120 secondary schools to participate in the study. Findings – It is found that with the agreement and support of school heads and teachers, there is good progress in the reform items on teaching and learning. Findings of this paper also suggest that teachers who agreed with the reform items made changes with their practices in terms of learning and teaching strategies, catering to learner diversity, assessment for learning, developing students' language proficiency, cross-curricula learning, playing multiple teachers' roles and preparation for the new senior secondary curriculum. This study thus supports most findings from the change literature with its empirical data that educational changes and innovations with the agreement and support of school heads and teachers tend to have a greater chance of succeeding. Originality/value – The paper contributes by examining to what extent findings and views established in change literature elsewhere can be justified and enriched with the case of Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.]

Hong Kong schools experience an era of educational change in the 1990s. In the perspective of school management, the School Management Initiative was first introduced in 1991 and later replaced by the School Based Management in 1999, allowing school management greater autonomy in general administration, finance and personnel matters but at the same time requiring a higher degree of accountability for school performance. Other major change items fall into the categories of curriculum ( TOC, curriculum adaptation), medium of instruction (EMI and CMI schools), educational technology (SAMs and information technology in teaching) and funding system (Quality Education Fund). To enhance the quality of school education, it is further recommended by the Education Commission Report no.7, apart from others (1) a framework to raise the professional standards of principals and teachers and (2) a framework of quality indicators for school performance. These changes denote a demand for professional competence of principals and teachers to meet the needs and difficulties of school. While there are various means to raise the competence of principals and teachers, the running of staff development programmes is obvious a generally acceptable one as it is less disruptive to school administration. It also has the advantages of being more school-based to meet the particular needs of individual schools. The popularity of staff development programmes can be reflected by the increasing number of services provided by the Continuing Professional Education of the HKIEd upon request. The authors of this paper have been heavily involved in the staff development programmes of primary and secondary schools since the past few years. Through participant observation, interviews and other data-collecting techniques, this paper attempts to provide information, as reflected by the programmes organized, specifically on (1) the different professional needs of different types of schools and (2) the different

The success of a school depends to a very great degree on the understanding of their roles by the school teachers as it is through them that school policies become actual practice. The move of an educational system from an elitist to a more general and compulsory one in the 1970s and wider socio-economic and socio-political changes in the last two decades have shaped the overall administrative pattern of primary schools in Hong Kong. It also denotes a demand for changing roles of teachers. As a result, a study on role identification of teachers is useful in both school administration and teacher education. Utilizing the models of Taylor and others, as well as using a sample of experienced primary school teachers attending the teachers refresher course offered by the HKIED, the symposium attempts to provide an initiate finding of a survey for the discussion of the following: 1. What administrative role-functions are the experienced teachers performing? 2. What tasks do these teachers perceive as the most important in the successful and efficient running of their subject departments/committees? 3. Are there any discrepancies between the performed roles and the perceived roles of teachers? 4. What tasks are being perceived as the most difficult to be handled? 5. Why are they difficult to handle? 6. What administratrative skills and knowledge are perceived by experienced teachers as most important to be included in an in-service training program for teachers ? Implications and recommendations for school administration and teacher education will also be discussed.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, there have been changes in the rationale and practice of Hong Kong’s teacher education. Apart from the expansion of the initial teacher education, there is also an increase in the provision of refresher teacher training programmes. Many of these training programmes are offered by the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Some of them have become credit-bearing since 1998. To ensure these programmes are effective in meeting the needs of schools, evaluation studies are necessary. Based on a longitudinal investigation with interviews and questionnaires, and with a sample of around 120 course participants, this study attempts to evaluate a primary refresher training programme called “The School as an Organization (SAO)”. The research methodology and preliminary findings from the pilot group are discussed.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]