A long-neglected sector in education, early childhood education (ECE) in Hong Kong has generated much attention in recent years following the government's heavy promotion as laying the foundation for lifelong learning and all-round development. Enhancing 'teacher professionalism' by raising qualifications and remuneration is seen as a vehicle to achieve quality ECE. While the once lowly perceived occupation is now 'in fashion' among college applicants, little is known about how prospective teachers view ECE teachers' professionalism in Hong Kong. This study explored the views of 175 Hong Kong pre-service ECE teachers from 7 teacher education institutions using self-administered, open-ended survey questionnaires. The results showed that the pre-service ECE teachers generally described Hong Kong ECE teachers positively and viewed them as professionals. However, they also revealed a sharp dissonance between the participants' own perception and society's perception of the professionalism of ECE teachers due to the different emphases they used to define professionalism when shifting their perspectives. The results reflect a generally pessimistic view of the pre-service teachers on teaching in ECE as a career. Implications and suggestions for government policies, ECE teacher training, and research are discussed. Copyright ©2021 Routledge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made online and distance learning the new normal at all levels of education. Music as a school subject that relies heavily on multimodal sensory and auditory-motor interactions has been dramatically affected. Music teachers may not be coping mentally or psychologically with these drastic changes. This study examined the psychological impact of COVID-19 on music teachers’ (N = 120) mental health and well-being through a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). The Fear of Coronavirus-19 Scale, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale and a shortened version of the Chinese Teacher Stress Questionnaire were used to measure Hong Kong music teachers’ experiences of psychological pressure and problem behaviours linked to the outbreak of the infectious disease. The findings revealed that music teachers are experiencing stress, fear, and anxiety in response to the pandemic. They are concerned about the effectiveness of online music teaching, parental expectations, students’ adaptability to online learning, technological integration and maintaining transformative teaching professionalism. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The outsourcing of education services has been widely adopted across international contexts as a ‘tested solution’ or panacea to meet various educational problems including school management, curriculum design, teaching and student discipline. Contracting third-party providers, it is argued, enhances organisational goals such as efficiency, quality and school improvement. However, the outsourcing of education services has also impacted on established notions concerning the boundaries around teachers’ work. This paper deploys the framework of discursive institutionalism to offer insight into how the idea of outsourcing has been activated and circulated by discursive communities in three diverse international settings. Despite its problem-solution logic, the institutionalisation of outsourcing creates its own problems, not least the undermining of teacher professionalism, the ‘businessification’ of schools and a diminishing of their educational mission. Copyright © 2019 British Association for International and Comparative Education.

The status of English as a global language has played a significant role in contemporary language education policies across the world. In East Asia, the hegemony of English has been reflected in a number of central governments' policies of recruiting native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) to participate in English language education. This paper focuses on the NESTs recruitment policies in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan with the aim of examining how teacher professionalism is represented in these policy discourses and how this conceived teacher professionalism impacts on English teaching and learning in these countries. Through the analysis of policy texts and documents, we argue that teacher professionalism has been assigned a different agenda by the governments who subscribe to "native speaker norms" and legitimise unqualified and inexperienced NESTs in the profession of English language teaching (ELT). These anti-professionalism policies have not achieved the intended consequence of improving students' English proficiency, but have instead resulted in the unintended consequences of damaging the quality of English instruction and jeopardising the professional identity of local non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in these countries. The results reveal an urgent need to evaluate the effectiveness of these NEST recruitment programmes.
[Copyright of English Teaching: Practice & Critique is the property of Universidad del Zulia.]

背景：近年教育改革成為世界各地廣泛關注的公共政策議題，而各地教育改革的經驗更是值得詳加比較與研究，以作為相互參照之用。
目的或討論焦點：本文把分析及討論之重心聚焦在教育改革過去20 年在香港的發展經過、主要改革措施，以及教改的矛盾和影響之上。
論點/評論/建議：全文共分四部分。第一部分概括地回顧香港教育改革自20 世紀80 年代的發展背景與演變狀況；第二部分則集中探討教育改革的主要內容，特別關注學制、學校管理、質素評鑑、教師專業及辦學模式等方面的轉變；第三部分分析及討論該等改革措施的影響及啟示；最後為總結部分。
總結：本文著重指出，近年香港教育改革明顯受到其他地區所進行之改革所影響，與海外地區相似的是教育質素指標化、權力下放與集權同時出現，以及商業化或市場化等。這些因素都深刻地影響著教育工作者的工作。
Background: Recently, education reform has been a focus of public policy discussion. It is valuable to compare the education reforms in different places in order to reach a deeper understanding of the reform in a particular place.
Aims or focus of discussion: The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze the process, major measures and changes over time in relation to education reform in Hong Kong. It also examines the problems and impacts involved.
Arguments / comments / suggestions: The paper is divided into 4 parts: (1) a review of education reforms since the 1980s; (2) the major measures adopted, particularly those related to the education system, school management, quality assessment, teacher professionalism and the school system; (3) a discussion on the impacts of these reform measures; and (4) conclusion.
Conclusion: This paper points out that the Hong Kong education reforms, being affected by experience elsewhere, are dominated with several features, such as the stress on quantifying education quality, the simultaneity of evolution and centralization, and the education marketization, which are all important factors that affect the teaching life of ordinary Hong Kong teachers.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]