We analyze the policies of China and Israel towards students from Hong Kong and East Jerusalem respectively. We demonstrate that they are treated as International students and subject to a form of ‘internationalization’ designed to consolidate national forms of identity and extend state control over ‘troublesome’ minorities within the nation state. This domestic adaptation of the structures designed to support internationalization within Universities, through which the state deploys higher education as a tool of ‘soft power’ to control parts of the nation, operates within a broader program of ‘internal colonization’ that is neither well developed in the literature nor explained by prominent typologies of internationalization. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper critically examines parents’ and service providers’ reception of the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS), which was designed to enhance the quality of early childhood education in Hong Kong. The PEVS was a universal voucher policy that was designed to harness market forces and increase direct governmental control of quality in a private education market wherein pre-academic training and competition are emphasized. This paper presents the results of a survey of 413 parents and 215 service providers. Findings indicated that despite the government’s efforts in promoting quality as ‘child-centeredness’ and the efforts of preschools in meeting the quality standards, parents remained relatively neutral about the policy's influence on preschool quality. However, all parents appreciated the financial benefits they accrued from the PEVS, and more socially-advantaged families allocated the additional disposable income on extra educational activities and programs for their children. Findings suggest the implementation of the PEVS in a fully private market might unexpectedly exacerbate inequity in educational opportunities. The enrolment size of the preschool was also found to be a determinant of respondents’ views of the PEVS. We argue the government’s idea of ‘joyful learning’ may be even harder to achieve with the current means of service governance.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge.]

On 1 July 1997, after 150 years of British colonial rule, Hong Kong returned to its mother country, the People's Republic of China (PRC). Anticipation of reunification spawned speculation about the possibilities, prospects and problems for the political, economic and social life of Hong Kong after 1997. This paper argues that the unpredictability and uncertainty which have characterized the educational policy environment in Hong Kong for many years were compounded by the imminence of the change of sovereignty. It is suggested that examination of the policy process in the contemporary Hong Kong context can best be understood by examining both macro‐ and micro‐policy perspectives, and the interrelationships between them. Two guiding questions related to the influence of sovereignty change on education are addressed. The first question asks how system‐level policies are being interpreted in schools. The second question asks whether, how and to what extent change of sovereignty has politicized the policy process, particularly at the school level. The paper has three parts: the first provides a socio‐politico‐economic context to Hong Kong's handover; the second describes important educational policies shaping the system during the period of transition; and the third discusses school‐level responses and reactions to the policies within the context of a politicized environment. Copyright © 1998 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

In response to the perceived ‘feminisation’ of primary school teaching, educational authorities in many countries have implemented policies designed to encourage more men to take up teaching positions in primary schools. While challenges to the efficacy of such policies have emerged in the literature, limited attention has been given to the voice of male primary school teachers themselves. Using a qualitative multiple case study approach, this study addresses this imbalance by examining how five male primary school teachers construct professional identities within Hong Kong primary schools. In-depth interviews give voice to these male primary school teachers, revealing the dominant discourses that make available certain identity positions to all primary school teachers in Hong Kong. The study explores how these five teachers exercise individual agency as they struggle to be recognised as competent members of a community of primary school teachers. The case studies also describe the limits to such personal agency, suggesting the need for policy initiatives that support the identity work of all primary school teachers by going beyond calls for the recruitment of greater numbers of male primary teachers. Some of the ways in which educational policy and practice could provide such support are considered and implications for future research are discussed.
[Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis.]

This article critically examines how Asian countries have responded to the global economic crisis which started in late 2008, with particular reference to explore what major coping strategies have been adopted by these Asian governments to continue educational development. This comparative study highlights the significant role of the state in support of education, especially when foreign aids for development projects have declined in those developing economies in Asia.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.510641]

In the spring of 2005, students and alumni of the Chinese University of Hong Kong staged an adamant protest against University directives which they perceived would result in a significant increase in the number of courses taught in English. They denounced the administration of selling out on the founding mission of the University, for which, as stated in its Ordinance, the principal medium of teaching would be Chinese. The University, on the other hand, defended its policy in the name of 'internationalization' and the need to stay ahead in the midst of severe competition at home and abroad. This paper examines this language controversy against the wider context of English hegemony and the rise of academic capitalism, two forces which are inextricably linked for the non-Western societies in a post-colonial era. I will try to show that the controversy was ultimately a struggle over the meaning of university education, between what I would call the instrumentalists and the humanists in this age of globalization. I end the paper with a pessimistic note, saying that it is the former who have gained an upper hand, and that the scope and parameters of the language debate are heavily restricted.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680930903443886]

In 2007, a Judicial Commission of Inquiry was established by the Government of Hong Kong to investigate allegations that senior officials had interfered with the academic freedom and institutional autonomy of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). It concluded that a former minister had requested the President of that institution to curb the criticisms of Government policies by two of his colleagues. The report had significant ramifications including the resignation of the former minister. This article initially describes the background to the Inquiry and subsequently analyses why the situation escalated and resulted in the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry. The explanation focuses on the inherent weaknesses of the system of Governance, the political ecology of Hong Kong and recent changes to the political system.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680931003671962]

One of the major innovations in the recent wave of education reform in Hong Kong is the target-oriented curriculum. An interesting feature of this new curriculum initiative was its amoebic characteristics - changing shape and focus in its course of development. It was reshaped from an assessment system for accountability purposes to a centrally developed curriculum initiative for improving teaching and learning, and finally to a school-based curriculum development. In this paper, this course of development and the reasons behind it will be described and analysed. The study suggests that the two-tier educational policy and implementation system in Hong Kong is a major cause leading to such a phenomenon. If this system were not improved, the possibility of achieving real changes at the school and classroom level would be low.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268093032000145890]

This paper focuses on two themes - the marginalization of curriculum subjects and the gap between curriculum policy aims and the implemented curriculum. Illustrating these themes, the study focuses on the marginalization of physical education and the policy-practice gap in the Hong Kong school curriculum. A framework recognizing three domains - normative, institutional and resources - is proposed as a useful heuristic device to gain further insight into problems connected with the two themes and as a way of generating appropriate policies to address them. In accounting for the differential weightings given curriculum subjects, it is necessary to go beyond school-level (institutional) decisions taken by principals and teachers and to consider long-cherished Chinese societal values, reflective of the normative domain. What is considered 'valid knowledge' is a product of deeply ingrained Chinese socio-cultural values that place high esteem on academic subjects leading to careers in the professions, public service and highly remunerated work in the service-based economy. Schools are sandwiched between pressures from the central authority and from societal and parental values and expectations, leading to a policy-practice gap where core subjects, such as physical education, struggle for survival and resources. The three domains of the framework are used to suggest a number of strategies for addressing the problems of marginalization and policy-practice gap, one of which involves the adoption of a more integrated approach to the curriculum and a commitment to increase resource allocation, both of which could eventuate in changing societal norms and values. Finally, policy and political implications suggest that government policy makers endeavour to close the policy-practice gap by developing a closer understanding of the problems schools experience in implementing policy.
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In September 1997, shortly after China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong, the Education Department announced a policy which was widely seen as a restoration of 'mother-tongue education', but which, in reality, was an elitist language selection policy. This policy, which provided for the selection of the best primary school graduates for monolingual education in English, was designed to be a cost-effective way of training in English skills for those who had the economic and cultural capital to benefit from it. Meanwhile, the majority of students were barred from sufficient exposure to English, the language of power and wealth. In this paper, I shall show that this policy draws on a strong utilitarian discourse about the centrality of English for the economic survival of Hong Kong, which was engineered by business interests on the eve of the changeover in 1997, and which helped perpetuate a form of linguistic imperialism. Meanwhile, academics whose research was used to legitimize the policy, failed to problematize dominant language ideologies that have been used to justify pedagogically unsound practices and an inequitable language streaming policy. Through documenting the voices of individual educators, I am able to delineate counter-discourses which, albeit weak and isolated, nevertheless manifested much broader educational concerns than the narrow utilitarianism and the unquestioned privileging of the learning of English skills that underlay the current policy.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268093032000145917]