Recently, the professional development and training of principals has become a hot issue in Hong Kong. The idea of enhancing the professional quality of principals is officially raised by the Education Commission in its Report no. 7, followed by a government consultation paper on a proposed principals training programme. It is mentioned in the consultation paper that the draft programme is proposed after some visits to Australia, the USA, the UK and Singapore and a study of their prinicpals development programmes. The impact of the introduction of a principals training programme is great. It affects more than 1,200 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong and twice or thrice the number in terms of serving and potential principals, not to mention the other stakeholders namely teachers, parents and students. There are also related controversial issues ranging from educational theory to practice. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it is to introduce in greater details the various principals training programmes of the countries mentioned in the consultation paper. On top of them, training programmes in China and some other countries are also included to give an overall picture of representative principal training programmes. It is hope that this will widen our scope in the philosophy and practice behind a principals' training programme. Secondly, the paper also reports the findings of a survey conducted after the publication of the consultation paper. The survey was conducted in terms of questionnaires and the subjects of the survey were more than 750 serving and aspiring principals in over 230 local primary and secondary schools. Results of the survey will be discussed and recommendations will be made.

為了推動校長的持續發展，香港特區教育當局於2002年開始要求在職校長在三年內參加不少於150小時的專業發展活動，當中的一個環節是要求校長要最少有30小時的實踐學習，期現職校長透過對行動實踐的反思，增強對學校組織的領導力。在快速改變的社會環境之下，校長的領導和管理行為，對於學校的發展和效能日益重要，故此，校長若具備較強的自我反省與自我發展的能力，將更好地領導不確定性日高的學校教育。此文將透過整理一個校長的個案，分享該校長在領導學校組織變革與發展的經驗。

In a recent large scale survey for collecting opinions and perceptions of primary school principals on teacher education, teacher competence and teacher quality, 528 school heads had responded. Descriptive summaries are stated in the report of Contextual Analysis for Programme Development of Hong Kong Institute of Education. Further analysis was done later for academic interest. In a question asking for principal's perceptions on teacher performance, 18 performance attitudes or styles each having five responses (Strongly Agree, Agree, No Idea, Disagree and Strongly Disagree) are suggested. Factor analysis with varimax rotation generates 3 factors with eigenvalue greater than l.The first factor is of our interest since it explains almost 40% of variation of the data and can be interpreted as a contrast of positive attitudes/styles versus negative ones. The factor scores and four potential explanatory variables (Age, Gender, Qualifications and School-type) were fit into an ANOVA model. It was found that age and gender show no significant difference in the perception. But both qualification and school-type exhibit significant effect on it. Moreover, the interaction of these two factors is significant. Principals who have not completed or started any local Bed program feel very happy with the performance of teachers. On the contrary, those having or studying a local Bed degree appear to be more demanding and are not so satisfied with the performance of teachers. The heads of special schools with a local Bed degree and those without one form two extreme groups in this aspect. The findings cast some light on the leadership of principles of various qualifications and school-type.

This article aims to explain the role principals play in the variation in academic achievement between secondary schools in Hong Kong. The article draws on survey data from 179 key staff and 2,037 students from 42 schools. The study uses 2 analytical approaches. First, it employs classification and regression tree analysis (CART). This was used to sort out the most significant leadership practices associated with student achievement. Second, based on first-stage analysis, the study further explores the effects of leadership practices on academic achievement using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). Results indicate that transparent and efficient communication structures as managed by principals explained approximately 12% of between-schools variation in academic achievement. Leadership practices related to quality assurance and accountability and resource management also contributed to explaining between-schools variation in academic achievement, yet they had negative effects on student achievement. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
[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/10.1080/09243453.2013.875044]