In the era of educational change, the performance of middle-managers for schools development is critical. Much recent literature revealed that middle managers play an important role in school reforms (Blandford, 1997; Bennett, 1995; Fleming & Aamesbury, 2001). In Hong Kong, the EdB has specific job specifications for the middle managers, e.g., deputy headship, and coordination role in school curriculum, counseling and guidance, extra-curricular activities, etc. Usually each middle manager has to lead a group of teachers to achieve their goals assigned by the principal or the school management committee. The workload of middle managers in the Hong Kong primary schools has escalated dramatically with the implementation of a wide range of reform initiatives. In order to support the professional development of middle managers in primary schools, the Department of Educational Policy and Management of the Hong Kong Institute of Education started to offer a middle manager leadership programme in 2005. In addition to the systematic lectures and workshops, participants had to go through action learning which included role-play and action learning sharing. This paper aims to review the effectiveness of the programme, with special interest on action learning. Based on the empirical evidence from the semi-structured interview, participants reflected that they learned better in experiential in-service training.It seems that this kind of training is better for the professional development of middlemanagers in enhancing their ability on leading teams and management of school development.

As the millennium unfolds itself public education in Hong Kong is facing both enormous changes and tremendous challenges. The Hong Kong Government has affirmed its strong commitment to build up a strong education system for its people. The school organization and its governance has to be restructured in the direction of a more democratic and collaborative professional community. The implementation of school-based management in Hong Kong has resulted in the devolution of more responsibilities and authority to schools. A shift from hierarchical leadership to distributed and transformative leadership is needed. There is no doubt about the significance of principal leadership in schools. However, without the assistance of effective middle managers, it will be difficult to meet the targets for quality school education. Much recent literature has revealed that middle managers play an important role in leading school reforms. However, a significant number of middle managers admitted experiencing difficulty in enacting their leadership role in their workplace. It is of paramount importance that a robust leadership team of middle managers is built in schools and that they are equipped with more leadership concepts and skills. Since 2003, Yu has conducted research and developmental work on the leadership of middle managers. Focus groups have been regularly conducted to solicit the input of both school middle managers and school heads on needs assessment. The collected data have been used to design training projects. About 5 middle managers’ leadership training projects (Yu et al., 2009; Yu, 2007; Yu et al., 2005; Yu et al., 2004; Yu, 2004) supported by the Quality Education Fund of the Hong Kong Government and school sponsoring bodies have been organized and reported. Before designing training programmes, focus groups of primary and secondary school middle managers were conducted to solicit their needs. Whereas focus groups of primary and secondary principals were conducted to

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.

This paper aims to study the perception of primary curriculum implemented in Hong Kong through the views of school practitioners and how the gaps were closed through school practice. Parts of the data in this paper were collected through interviews with principals and teachers on their the views of achieving the aims of the Hong Kong primary education curriculum. Their practice and effort in achieving the aims in education is recorded and analyzed. They were asked to pinpoint professional areas which they thought teachers may have difficulties and hence a barrier for the improvement of quality education and achieving the educational aims. These include opinions on subject content and pedagogical knowledge for the primary school subject in Chinese and mathematics and in turns reflect the contents needed in teacher education program. The paper provides insight for future teacher education program development and primary schools to distinguish practice that could be used by them.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Initial teacher education programs offered worldwide all aim at developing student teachers with the best and most comprehensive preparation before joining the teaching profession. However, teacher education research reveal that there are discrepancies between the outcome and what is intended in the program. Without sufficient field experience, beginning teachers always find difficulties in assisting administrative duties and curriculum planning in schools. It is a common practice that teachers are expected to perform different roles apart from regular classroom teaching. It appears that current teacher education programs do not provide solid preparation for beginning teachers in these areas. When beginning teachers function in school with a rather low level of competence in various areas, the chance of becoming burnout might be higher. To bridge the gap in teacher training, a Summer Creative School Project has been developed and launched in the summer vacation in 1998 in Hong Kong. The aim of the whole project was to provide opportunities for student-teachers to experience the management of a school for four weeks. The project has three stages, viz., the pre-field stage, field work stage and the debriefing stage. In this program, participants were given a series of intensive training in the form of seminars and workshops. There were a total of 80 student-teachers participating in the project. In the field work stage, a total of four Hong Kong public sector primary school were involved. Twenty student-teachers took over the management of 10-12 classes of one school. All student-teachers took up different functional posts as head teacher, deputy head teacher, coordinators of curriculum and extra-curricular activities, etc. They also designed their own curriculum with creativity development as the central theme. In the debriefing stage, the experience and limitations of student-teachers throughout the project are debriefed. This paper gives a full account

Recent literature has revealed that middle leaders play an important role in school reforms. School middle leaders are the backbone of the school organization. Without their assistance, it is difficult for principals to face the challenges of the reforms and run their schools efficiently and effectively. The implementation of school-based management in Hong Kong, however, has increased the workload of middle leaders. They need to lead groups of teachers to achieve tasks assigned by principals or decided by school-based councils. There is an increasing need of their leadership in schools. A great demand for providing leadership training for middle leaders has emerged. Since 2002, a group of scholars and principals have initiated and tried out different leadership training projects for primary school middle leaders in Hong Kong. Over 500 middle leaders from about 200 primary schools have been trained. The projects can be categorized into mainly three modes of training, namely, short-term mode, long-term mode and mixed mode. Each mode has its strengths and limitations. The short-term mode (five days) delivered theories and skills in management and leadership through talks and workshops. The long-term mode (12 months) had four stages: preparation, collaborative action learning, try-out and debriefing stages. The mixed mode carried key elements of the short-term mode and the long-term mode. This article reports the initiation and implementation of these projects. The structural and conceptual frameworks of the modes will be highlighted. A comparison of the three modes in terms of aims, contents, learning modes, lengths of time, resources will be provided. Results of the evaluation of the projects will be analyzed. The effectiveness of the three modes of middle leader training will be discussed and suggestions will be made.

Since 2000, all schools in the public sector in Hong Kong have implemented school-based management. However, it is only recently that the government has passed a new bill to enforce the setting up of a mandated structure of the school-based council in schools. Many school sponsoring bodies are worried about a possible diminution of their control as a result of the new management committee structure. At individual school level, the readiness of school principals, teachers and parents seems to be the core of the question. Principals’ transformational and curriculum leadership in local schools seems to be weak. As a result, policy-makers attempt to work out ways to enhance the implementation of school-based management by providing training for school managers, promoting home–school relations and encouraging the professional development for principals. In addition, there is a need to enhance leadership development for supervisors and middle managers. Future challenges to schools include carrying out a smooth transformation of the present school management structure to the required incorporated management committees, effective implementation of school-based management under the new bill and quality training for other stakeholders.
[Copyright © Springer 2005.]