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.

Conceptual Framework: This study is founded on the framework of life satisfaction (Huebner, 2001), spiritual health (SH) (Fisher, 1999; 2008), academic engagement (AE) (Appleton et al., 2008) and civic engagement (CE) (Schulz et al., 2008). Objective: To investigate the structural relationships among SH, SE and CE of secondary students. Method: The study employs an integrated questionnaire survey to unfold the complex relationships among the three factors: SH, SE and CE. Over 8500 students aged 12 – 19 were surveyed in 2015. The following hypotheses were tested: (H1) SH is positively predictive for SE. (H2) SH is positively predictive for CE. (H3) Students’ SE is predictive for their CE. (H4) The effect of SH on CE is mediated by SE. Results: Our findings confirm the structural relationships with SH having a significant direct effect on SE (0.883***) but not directly on CE (-0.028). Moreover, SE contributes significantly and positively to CE (0.753***). Spiritual health does not have a significant impact on civic engagement. However, a significant indirect effect of SH on CE via SE (0.665***) was confirmed. Discussion and conclusion: Our overall findings have supported the aforementioned hypotheses with one indirect effect between SH and CE. The study concludes that SH is a core factor with regard to positive student development academically and socially. Additionally, desirable school engagement is linked with students’ future societal engagement such as obeying rules and laws, serving others, expressing their views on civic issues and voting etc. Implications for developing a success for all engagement framework are discussed.

This presentation embraces two inter-related objectives: to examine the current policies and strategies that are employed by Hong Kong to attract more non-local students in order to become an educational hub in the region, and critique dominant conceptions of ‘higher education’ and the ways these play out in higher education policy. The paper begins by examining ‘markets’ and how this idea cannot be separated from the global dominance of neoliberal ideologies. This is related in turn to questions of policy borrowing. The particular pertinence of this is then emphasised by turning to a topic that, although it may seem a digression, goes to the heart of thinking in social sciences: the nature of humanism in Chinese and Occidental philosophy. Finally a return is made to aspects of international higher education in order to unsettle some of the dominant patterns of influence and open the way towards different kinds of thinking.

The present study aims to map the life satisfaction of adolescents from ethnic minority/immigrant backgrounds in schools with high concentrations of co-ethnic peers by comparing them with their mainstream counterparts in Hong Kong. The life satisfaction of 1,522 students was measured by the validated Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale. Tests of invariance were conducted followed by latent mean analysis. In contrast to the public debates on the undesirability of co-ethnic education, the findings do not suggest negative associations between the ethnic minority or immigrant status of these students and their self-appraised global and specific life satisfaction in school and with friends. This study confirms that a school factor exists and that there are significant differences in the life satisfaction of the student groups under review. Educating students in schools with high concentrations of co-ethnic peers appears to benefit South Asians but not mainland Chinese immigrant students.
[Copyright © 2013 The Author(s).]

With the rapid economic growth and development of the Asian economies in recent decades, there has been a continued rise of students in Asian countries studying outside their home country. The importance of the Asian market has been acknowledged by countries keen on exporting educational services. Hong Kong is aspiring to be an education hub. If this is to be achieved, strategic analysis in relation to how the territory can export its education service to the Asian region is much needed. This study attempts to highlight the major strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Hong Kong’s higher education in relation to its potential of being a regional education hub in Asia. It follows the study visits which the researchers conducted in such Asian countries as India, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which are important sources of international students in the region. To ensure that the latest trend of development can be accurately reflected, further literature review and documentary studies subsequent to the visits were conducted. The paper concludes by examining the implications for the Hong Kong government and the higher education sector when they seek to capture these increasingly growing Asian markets.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.]

The main purpose of the present study was to explore effective strategies and policies for exporting Hong Kong’s higher education to Asian markets. It examined and compared the current strategies and policies that are currently employed by Australia, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. The data for this project was obtained primarily from documents and in-depth interviews. Documents included the latest government reports, policy addresses, and official statistics. The in-depth interviews were conducted in Hong Kong as well as in the four studied cities—Mumbai, New Delhi, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. Interviewees included government officials, academics, higher education institutions’ representatives, consulate generals, and officials from policy bodies. It is clear from the findings of this present study that a set of favorable policies and strategies at the national level was behind the success of these competitors. Such policies are not confined to educational policies but extend to population and employment policies.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.]