After the handover, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government implemented drastic and enormous curriculum reforms, including project learning as one of the four key tasks. Over 80% of Hong Kong primary and secondary schools have adopted project learning as a curriculum task, which signifies the importance of teacher’s role and attitude in curriculum implementation. Yet the pressures on teachers and schools to achieve this result should not be underestimated. In this paper, the concept of “soft” and “hard” policy will be introduced as a means of analyzing the issues facing teachers in implementing the education reforms. “Soft” policy is characterized by persuasion, benchmarking and best practice exemplars. “Hard” policy on the other hand is explicitly embedded in legislation and budgetary allocations. This article will analyse the characteristics of project learning as a “soft” curriculum policy. It possesses features such as being practical, adaptable to context, emphasizing teaching processes, capable of being led from the classroom and is characterized by flexibility. Great emphasis is placed on conferences, seminars, sharing exemplars to promote and encourage teachers to work on this reform. On the other hand, however, the government uses “hard” means to monitor school compliance with the reforms. Thus, school self evaluation and external school evaluation are used to assess the extent to which schools are implementing curriculum innovations such as project learning. There are thus twin pressures on teachers and schools caused by the use of both “hard” and “soft” policy instruments.

Background: Schools present venues for physical activity promotion among youth, with physical education (PE) considered the primary vehicle responsible for increasing activity levels. Yet students are not very physically active during typical school PE classes. With the aim to engage Hong Kong students in more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during PE, a fitness infusion intervention using rope skipping was designed, and its effectiveness will be examined. Rope skipping was chosen because a) it provides moderate-to-high intensity physical activity; b) is inexpensive; c) students find it enjoyable; and d) is feasible in typical environments in Hong Kong, where PE classes are large in size (up to 40 students) and space available for physical activity is usually limited. Methods/Design: A matched-pair cluster randomized controlled trial was designed. Secondary school students from 24 classes (from 12 schools) will be recruited to participate in the trial. Students' baseline MVPA will be measured during school PE. Classes will be matched according to baseline variables and one class from each pair will be randomized into the experimental group. Teachers in the experimental group will be invited to attend a teacher workshop, and will insert a 15-minute rope skipping activity in four consecutive PE lessons. Motivational factors based on self-determination theory will also be measured as secondary outcomes. The effectiveness of the intervention will be evaluated by comparing changes in the proportion of lesson time spent in MVPA from baseline to follow-up across the experimental and control groups. Discussion: Physical activity levels in PE are often very low and there is a need to identify feasible low-cost interventions that can be easily disseminated. If the results of the study suggest the intervention to be effective, it could be implemented to schools throughout Hong Kong and other cities where space is limited.
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This study examines changes in attitudes, teaching efficacy, and concerns about inclusive education in a sample of 2361 teachers in Hong Kong who took a professional learning course about inclusive education. Participants completed a questionnaire seeking demographic information and their perceptions about these three aspects of inclusive education both before and after their course. Items were selected from the Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale Revised and Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices scales that were of relevance to the objectives of this study. The results indicate that in all three areas of acceptance, teaching efficacy, and concerns about inclusive education, positive improvements were made as a result of training, although generally this improvement was strongest in areas that teachers felt were under their direct control. The small amount of change in areas that teachers felt were not under their control may indicate that whatever change initiatives are put in place, they need to be holistic and systemic.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2014.906564]