Singapore and Hong Kong are vying to be the principal educational hub for the Asia-Pacific region and have begun to compete with Australia, Britain, Canada and the USA in providing cross-border education. Although these four Anglo-American countries still dominate cross-border education, Singapore and Hong Kong hope to make inroads into this export market and compete on the global stage. To create "world-class" universities, Singapore and Hong Kong have introduced quality assurance mechanisms, diversified funding sources, and restructured their university governance systems. This article compares the accountability measures introduced into Hong Kong and Singapore universities, and the responses of academics and administrators to these measures. The results indicate that both countries introduced greater autonomy as they augmented accountability for their universities, and the term "decentralised centralism" describes the kind of government control exerted in these Asian universities in the twenty-first century.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188790701845972]

The paper discusses the marking of written assignment and reports the results of the first step of an action research project conducted at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
[Copyright of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260293990240103 ]

This paper examines the role and position of continuing education in the lifelong learning society of Hong Kong. The first section describes the basic components of Hong Kong's lifelong learning system, which is composed of two interconnected sub-systems—namely, conventional education and continuing education—integrated under a common qualifications framework. The second section illustrates the contribution of the Federation for Continuing Education in Tertiary Institutions, an organisational alliance formed among key continuing education providers to assure quality in the sector; enhance communication among government, industries and the professional bodies; map strategies for developing human capital; and widen access to higher education by providing high-quality continuing education programs. In the final section, the HKU SPACE case study highlights 'sharing of quality education resources with overseas collaborators', 'achieving self-financing status through economies of scale', and the 'provision of flexible, multiple-level, well articulated and quality education services' as key features of the Hong Kong model of continuing education.
[Copyright of International Journal of Lifelong Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02601370802051660]

Greater China is an umbrella term used to cover Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. This article reviews the evolution of comparative education in these four societies, noting major forces which have shaped the field. The article observes and comments on similarities and differences within the four societies. It has been prepared as a response to the millennial special issue of the journal, and notes some lessons and contributions from the field in Greater China to the global field of comparative education.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050060120091256]

This retrospective study presents a comparison of assessment results achieved by distance-learning students and classroom-based students undertaking the same module in a degree course. The purpose of the comparison is to provide some objective measurement of the quality of distance education in relation to conventional classroom-based education. The authors have selected three groups of students, who have all undertaken the same module in the B. Sc Health Studies degree programme offered by the University of Paisley. One group (in Paisley) undertook their studies by means of conventional classroom-based education, the second (in Hong Kong) by supported distance learning with face-to-face contact in the form of tutorials, and the third (in a geographically dispersed group in the United Kingdom and other countries) by supported distance learning with no face-to-face contact. The results obtained by these three groups of students were analysed. Because of the differences in the size of the groups, the Kruskal- Wallis 1- Way Anova test was applied to validate the face value findings. The authors include findings from the literature comparing distance education with conventional education and from cross-cultural studies to present their data in context. Analysis of the assessment results showed that students from all three groups were successful in their studies, but the students studying by distance learning obtained significantly higher end-of-module results than their classroom-based colleagues. This latter finding reflects the conclusion that other investigators have reached In their discussion the authors identify educational, cultural and personal factors that may help to explain their findings. A limitation in the study is that it concerns only one module in the degree programme. The research now moves on to comparing students who have undertaken the whole degree programme by the means described.
[Copyright of ALT-J: Research in Learning Technology is the property

This paper reports a study that aims to find out the views of teachers and student teachers about the aims of the Hong Kong education system with respect to their teacher education courses. The findings suggest that student teachers need help to understand the fitting together of their teacher education courses to become the body of professional knowledge for all educators.