Hong Kong has successfully implemented various education and curriculum reforms since 2000. Starting from 2009, the New Academic Structure with a new 6-year secondary (3-year junior secondary and 3-year senior secondary) curriculum and 4 years of undergraduate education has been launched. There was a review of the progress of senior secondary curriculum implementation which showed good progress and a gradual realization of the seven learning goals related to healthy lifestyle, breadth of knowledge, learning and language skills, reading habit, and national identity and responsibility. In May 2014, the Education Bureau (EDB) issued the document “Guide on Life Planning Education and Career Guidance for Secondary Schools” emphasizing that under holistic learning and lifelong education perspectives, students’ motivation on pursuing their career/academic pathway should be cultivated. Concomitant with the education reform, there was a decline or ignorance of vocational and technical education in Hong Kong in past years, but recently the government established a “Task Force on Promotion of Vocational Education” to map out a strategy to raise the awareness and promote vocational education and training in Hong Kong. Against this background, this chapter discusses how education reform has embedded and contextualized life planning and vocational and technical educations with the emerging socioeconomic changes in Hong Kong. It is argued that in senior secondary education, life planning education should not only focus on career planning and guidance but also embrace a comprehensive perspective linking life education and future-oriented approach promoting entrepreneurship and innovative spirit. For vocational and technical education, it needs to be repositioned not only focusing on vocational training but also highlighting the development of students’ generic and employment skills in knowledge-based society like Hong Kong.

In this paper the authors employ a case study approach to investigate the transition process for a student with special educational needs from a Hong Kong subsidised primary school into a secondary school. An analysis of transcripts from individual and focus group interviews with the student, his parents, his 4 primary teachers and his 10 secondary teachers, as well as government documents and notes of school observations, indicated that a lack of formal procedures for supporting a student's transition can result in a range of significant difficulties. The discussion focuses on the urgent need to develop strategic guidelines at a systemic level within Hong Kong, with a much greater focus on a collaborative school approach rather than the current overreliance on the parents to lead this process.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jse.2013.8]