Aims: This study examines the principles and practices in term of functional analysis for managing records at secondary schools in Hong Kong as recommended by the ISO9001 requirement. Set up by the Geneva-based International Organisation for Standardisation, the ISO9001 addresses the requirements that schools, or any other form of organisation intending to meet the standard, must fulfil. Schools in Hong Kong are required to adhere to the education quality assurance (QA) policy, which emphasises a school’s accountability to the wider community and the development of school education in Hong Kong. The policy requires schools to collect data that can be used to report on the effectiveness of school education and to provide documents for scrutiny by government officials. In response to this (QA) policy, schools in Hong Kong have to manage their records effectively. Record management, as one of the administrative principles in schools, ensures that accurate information of all school activities is kept and can facilitate an effective and evidence-based, decision-making process. Identifying taxonomy and management practices for effective documentation in schools can support planning; assist with organising the continuity of improvement plans; and increase reporting and accountability to the public. Methodology: This study examines the records management model using a case study that focuses on the experience of implementing records management and knowledge management at school. The case study is a secondary school in Hong Kong which has adopted the ISO standard and is implementing knowledge management. The researcher conducted a series of qualitative interviews at a secondary school, where the ISO 9001 certification had been introduced. The study explores how the records were managed and classified. Findings: The results show that the case school adopted a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach to record management, to facilitate decision making and managing knowledge

This chapter reports on two studies conducted in both Hong Kong and Australia. The purpose of these research studies was three-fold: first, to evaluate the secondary business education curriculum; second, to explore its role in both Hong Kong and Australia, in order to determine the future directions in the light of perceived social, environmental, technological and political changes; and third, to make appropriate recommendations to policymakers in the respective countries. The results of the two studies demonstrated that the current secondary business education curriculum in Hong Kong and Australia has moved towards, but is not yet fully conversant with the need for, a paradigm shift from a predominantly skills-based curriculum to a dynamics-based curriculum. The notion of competence and its origin are discussed. A move towards a more holistic perspective of competence, that is, an interpretative-relational perspective is proposed and illustrated for business education. The introduction of competency standards for the clerical-administrative occupations in private industry tends to restrict the curriculum to the achievement of skills and outcomes, rather than move towards a broader base. It is recommended that the aims of secondary business education be under constant review; the image of business education be updated; there be an increased emphasis on vocational education, provision of resources, and opportunities for professional development for business education teachers. Implications for research, policy and practice including a business education curriculum based upon an interpretative-relational model of competence are drawn.
[Copyright © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.]

The use of students' second language as the medium of instruction in schools is quite common in former colonies of Western countries. Schools in Hong Kong have had this kind of experience for more than 150 years. In this study, three factors, namely economic, political, and educational, are found to affect the choice of medium of instruction in schools. In particular, the economic factor is found to be the dominant one for most of the time, while the educational factor has the smallest influence. Due to the change of the above three factors and their interactions over time, there were more Chinese-medium secondaryschools in the first 100 years (1842-1949) and then more English-medium secondaryschools during the transitional period 1950-97. However, the political factor suddenlybecomes dominant after the change of sovereignty- there is an abrupt drop in English-medium secondaryschools after government intervention in 1998. Educators should be more vocal and involved in politics in order to push the Government to make decisions that are educationally right.
[Copyright © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.]

This paper reports on the assessment of readiness and receptivity of school principals, English panel chairpersons and English teachers for the implementation of the new senior secondary curriculum (NSSC) in English Key Learning Area (KLA) in Hong Kong. Recent research ahs probed into the dilemmas and challenges faced by school administrators and frontline teachers when facing curriculum change. Such challenges exist in the management of change, the teachers’ readiness for change, and in problems with collaboration among the stakeholders. Drawing on these research findings the analysis of this paper focuses on whether such problems are also re-occurring in the implementation of change in the NSSC, and if so, considers how they can be resolved. Using qualitative research procedures four key questions were addressed: how far the school personnel understood the changes in the NSSC; the extent to which they felt they could implement the new curriculum; which factors encouraged/constrained implementation; and the possible effects of change on schools. The findings showed that schools with students of high or medium ability seemed to be more positive in terms of perceptions and receptivity at the initial stage of change, while schools dominated by cohorts of medium or low academic ability students appeared to be resistant to the shift in pedagogic arrangements. Yet all the school principals interviewed expressed their unreserved agreement with the spirit of the new curriculum.
[Copyright © 2009 The Asian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.]

Research on school improvement tends to assume that school improvement is a school-wide process. Nonetheless, some researchers have also proposed that secondary schools are comprised of subcultures centered on subject area departments. It has further been suggested that variations in the sociocultural organization of subject departments could produce differential results in the learning outcomes of students. To date, however, few empirical studies have examined the leverage offered by this perspective. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing changes in the learning outcomes of subject departments over a 3-year period as compared with patterns of whole school improvement in 47 Hong Kong secondary schools. The results support the proposition that theory, research, and practice on secondary schools will benefit from viewing their improvement from a perspective that takes into account the diversity of department-level conditions and learning outcomes.
[Copyright of School Effectiveness and School Improvement is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2014.882848]