After considering colonialism and the transition of Hong Kong, this article explores the state of curriculum management now at the micro- level, through a case study of two secondary schools, It provides a picture of the tensions, compromises and evolution of the educational system.
[Copyright of Curriculum Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681369800200024 ]

With the current state of web technology, multimedia materials are readily accessible by students. This paper reports on the design and evaluation of three online courses from a university in Hong Kong which incorporate media‐enhanced learning materials. These cases are at different positions with respect to the types of knowledge and levels of cognitive reasoning outlined in the revised Bloom's taxonomy. Evaluation data give qualified support for media‐enhanced aspects of the courses being beneficial to student learning. The study has also highlighted factors that influence the success of the learning experience: attention to the quality and design of the media, considering student motivation and focusing on feedback on learning during the course. Media and learning design, thus, are inextricably intertwined in a complex relationship.
[Copyright of Educational Media International is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523980600641403]

Relatively little is known about how and by whom curriculum leadership and management occur inside secondary schools, especially in Asian contexts. This article aims to analyse curriculum decision-making in two academically effective secondary schools in Hong Kong. It employs qualitative methods to capture the contributions made by various school personnel, and in particular the principals, to curriculum leadership and management. Data for the two schools show that whilst neither of the principals plays a significant role in curriculum monitoring and innovation, the vice-principal (male), the senior teachers and teachers in one school were perceived to place more emphasis on curriculum monitoring and innovation than their counterparts in the other school. Whilst teachers in both schools shared high expectations for students' academic achievement, one subtle difference between them related to the pursuit of academic excellence. In one school, students did not exert much pressure on their teachers whereas in the other school, teachers felt they had to fulfil students' demands for good lesson preparation and take account of students' opinions of their teaching.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632439968970]

This paper presents a comparative study of extra-musical learning in the music classes of the schools of Hong Kong and Taiwan, where education is geared towards democracy and citizenship at a time of unstable national identity for both communities. Taiwan has been undergoing a process of indigenisation since 1945, whilst Hong Kong's sovereignty was returned to the People's Republic of China after 1 July 1997. This paper argues that the transmission of extra-musical learning is essentially a response to the particular needs of these two Chinese historical-social contexts, which require their music curricula to be securely grounded in the ideology of a culturally based education for 'citizenship'. Despite different approaches to western-based musical knowledge in schools, Hong Kong and Taiwan attempt to promote a sense of national identity and an essentially Confucian set of moral values as a central goal of school music education. The promotion of ethno-cultural nationalism in Taiwan's music education is regarded as a democratic goal for the Taiwanese state, though in practice, the educational systems of both Taiwan and Hong Kong are coloured by the global context.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305792032000070066]

Hong Kong is embarking on curricular and pedagogic reforms which replace modernist, Tylerian approaches to the curriculum with recommendations that echo many features of complexity theory. The nature of complexity theory-based curricula are outlined, and these are used to interrogate three seminal curriculum reform documents in Hong Kong. The article suggests that they embody a paradigm shift in curriculum thinking. However, given that complexity theory is not without its problems for curricula, a case is made for an eclectic approach to curriculum planning, and it is this that is taking place in Hong Kong's reformist agenda.
[Copyright of Pedagogy, Culture & Society is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681360300200174]

The author evaluates Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC) initiative. It is found that assessment issues cause major problems for teachers so that TOC is implemented in varying degrees in schools.

This paper presents how the content and language that are cross-curricular and subject-specific in Targets and Target-Related Assessment are interrelated. It offers the way of how learning through inquiring, thinking, problem-solving, communicating, and valuing can be worked within the related framework of language.

The authors present a Conceptual Framework to underpin the Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC) renewal initiative in Hong Kong, and then elaborate the interrelationships among 1) concepts, 2) processes of doing things, 3) systems integrating concepts or processes or both, and 4) representations: i.e., language to identify and connect the concepts, processes and systems.

This report is about a study commissioned by the Curriculum Development Institute to explore the impact of Target Oriented Curriculum in primary schools. The foci of this report are on the style and form of assessment and feedback provided to pupils. It is pointed out in the report that examples of good practices could be recommended and disseminated to support school based initiatives.