Hong Kong has introduced new school evaluation and assessment policies since 1997 which need to be implemented by school leaders. This context creates the possibility that policy intentions are not understood, accepted, or implemented. Using discrepancy evaluation analysis, this study reports interviews from 23 Hong Kong school principals about their perceptions and experiences of new policies to do with school evaluation and assessment for learning. The discrepancies fell into five major categories: one size does not fit all; a matter of school survival; workload for teachers; time pressures on those who manage and teach; and learning environment at the schools. The school principals were not convinced that the intended outcomes of helping schools to improve learning were achieved, rather they believed the policies were being implemented to control and close schools unfairly.
[Copyright © 2010 Philippine Society for Educational Research and Evaluation.]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the progress of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong in the implementation phase from 2001-2006, with the agreement and support of heads and teachers on the reform. Design/methodology/approach – Survey questionnaires and focus group interviews were used to collect data from various stakeholders. A stratified random sampling method was employed to select 150 primary schools and 120 secondary schools to participate in the study. Findings – It is found that with the agreement and support of school heads and teachers, there is good progress in the reform items on teaching and learning. Findings of this paper also suggest that teachers who agreed with the reform items made changes with their practices in terms of learning and teaching strategies, catering to learner diversity, assessment for learning, developing students' language proficiency, cross-curricula learning, playing multiple teachers' roles and preparation for the new senior secondary curriculum. This study thus supports most findings from the change literature with its empirical data that educational changes and innovations with the agreement and support of school heads and teachers tend to have a greater chance of succeeding. Originality/value – The paper contributes by examining to what extent findings and views established in change literature elsewhere can be justified and enriched with the case of Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.]

This paper aims to identify the characteristics of principal leadership in Hong Kong. More specifically, it analyzes and integrates a number of studies to identify the consistency of principal leadership across the years and samples using a number of different leadership conceptions. These conceptions include both traditional and alternate approaches to educational leadership. The paper shows how societal culture and context combine with the principals’ personal attributes to shape their school leadership. Findings indicate considerable diversity among Hong Kong principals even through they operate within the same social system. The paper stresses the importance of understanding culture and context if worthwhile leadership development programmes are to be developed.
[Copyright © 2000 Routledge.]

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.]

Teacher leadership ties in the heart of school improvement while principal plays a salient role in fostering teachers’ leadership. This study aims to examine a group of beginning teachers in Hong Kong to address research questions: (1) To what extent are the teachers’ developments of teacher leadership? (2) What are the teachers’ perceptions of principal-teacher interactions? (3) How principal-teacher interactions attribute to the teacher leadership development? Multiple data sources, including interviews, documentary evidence and questionnaires were collected. Results show that principal-teacher interactions that reflected trust, value communication and encourage professional development are key to facilitating teacher leadership. Three types of impact illustrating principal-teacher interactions attribute to teacher leadership development are identified. Implication for school leaders and teacher educators are discussed.

This paper is based on research conducted with principals in Hong Kong which is a replication of a study conducted Virginia, United States of America (USA). The paper outlines the implementation of Quality Leadership strategies used by both sets of principals to restructure their schools in a changing society. Principals report their leadership role can no longer follow the traditional autocratic model. Both sets of principals are changing the strategies they use to manage their schools. Research on the implementation of Quality in education made the following observation even stronger evidence of Quality implementation existing at the school level. It is apparent that principle have attempted to change the way they relate to their staffs and manage their buildings. These principals have shared decision-making responsibilities with faculty and support staff through various means. Continued study is warranted to assess benefits to students as well as the role the principal plays in successful implementation. (Bryant, 1995) This case study research was conducted using qualitative methodology to study and compare the differences in the principal's leadership role in the United States and in Hong Kong in the implementation of the components of Quality as defined by the Virginia Department of Education, based on the XEROX Leadership Through Quality model. This case study research is based on extensive research conducted on principals in Virginia and reported by Bryant (1995). Data for Hong Kong was gathered through the use of the in-depth interview developed by Quality and methodological experts. The interviews were conducted on site. The findings include an analysis of the differences in the leadership roles between principals who participated in publicly funded TQM project in Virginia (CTQP) and in a similar School Management Initiative (SMI) Project funded by the Department of Education in Hong Kong. Initial findings indicate that the leadership of the principals in

This study tested how collaboration, as a component of school capacity and a potential mediator, affect the relationship between principal leadership and teacher professional learning in Hong Kong primary schools. To investigate teacher perceptions of principal leadership and school capacity, two questionnaires were combined to use. The online survey was administered with a sample of 970 teachers from 32 primary schools. The orthodox regression based dour-step causal approach (Baron & Kenny, 1986) integrated with the bootstrapping method, was adopted for mediating analysis, with the composite score of principal leadership as the predictor. Upon the affirmation of the presence of the mediating effects, significance and strength were further assessed. This study stepped further to test the overall effect of the seven core areas of principal leadership, as independent predictors, on teacher professional leaning via the possible mediating effects of collaboration. The findings affirmed that, collaboration did play a mediating role between the relationship of principal leadership and teacher professional learning in Hong Kong primary schools.