This paper compares conceptions of teacher quality in two education systems – Singapore and Hong Kong – that consistently perform well in international assessments of student achievement. Both systems constantly refresh their expectations of teacher competencies, with recent iterations, which offer a just-in-time opportunity to learn from how they now conceptualise quality teaching. This paper will provide the context surrounding each jurisdiction's education system, how each views teacher quality, and how each has rethought the concepts of teacher quality according to their unique contextual circumstance. The paper then compares these concepts articulated and enacted by each country, linking these to the wider international literature and scholarship in order to glean insights into what teacher quality is or how it might be reconceptualised to meet future needs. Copyright © 2021 Routledge.

Teaching has become increasingly challenging as a result of high expectations and demands placed on education systems. With an overview of the pathways to become a teacher and the teacher policy context in Hong Kong, this chapter presents the case of an undergraduate ITE programme offered by the Education University of Hong Kong. The ITE programme aims at preparing high quality ITE graduates with the key attributes of Professional Excellence, Ethical Responsibility and Innovation. The heightened expectations and demands placed on teachers in Hong Kong have been exacerbated by the enormous difficulties at the societal level since 2019. The outbreak of the COVID-pandemic and the major socio-political issues have generated unprecedented uncertainties in society at large and the education community. The chapter examines how these extraordinary circumstances place novel demands on teachers’ professional competence, and hence requiring new professional knowledge. The creation of hybrid spaces in ITE and communicative safe spaces is needed to foster the co-construction of new professional knowledge. The chapter ends by arguing that professional competence coupled with teacher buoyancy can likely enhance the potential for ITE graduates to stand tall against immense everyday challenges of beginning teaching in an era of unprecedented uncertainties. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

This study examined the relationships between faculty trust, professional learning communities and teacher professional learning among a sample of 2120 kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong. Faculty trust was examined through trust in colleagues, trust in the principal and trust in parents to explore the effects of organizational factors in details. The results showed that professional learning communities significantly mediated the positive effects of faculty trust on teacher professional learning. However, while trust in colleagues exerted a positive effect on teacher professional learning, the effects of trust in parents and trust in the principals were found to be negative and having no significant effect respectively. Kindergartens are recommended to promote teacher learning through enhancing faculty trust and professional learning communities. Copyright © 2019 All Academic, Inc.

This study examined the relationships between professional learning communities (PLCs), principal leadership practices and teacher commitment to kindergartens among 2,120 educators from 153 Hong Kong kindergartens. The relationships were analyzed at both school and teacher levels using multilevel structural equation modeling. The result showed that at both levels, leadership practices promoted PLCs and exerted an indirect effect on teacher commitment through collaborative activities. Moreover, an indirect effect through reflective dialogue and a direct effect of leadership practices on teacher commitment were found at the teacher level. In contrast, the mediating effects of collective focus on student learning were insignificant at both levels. ECE principals are encouraged to introduce PLCs to promote teacher learning and commitment in the time of reforms. Copyright © 2020 All Academic, Inc.

Teachers’ attitudes towards curriculum change are crucial in determining the success of implementation. This study examined the relationships between kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of instructional leadership, efficacy, trust in colleagues and behavioral intentions to implement play-based learning in Hong Kong. Data were collected from 542 Hong Kong kindergarten teachers who participated in a survey. The results showed that instructional leadership was positively association with teachers’ behavioral intentions to implement play-based learning directly and indirectly through teacher efficacy and trust in colleagues. The findings affirm that principals and curriculum leaders played a key role in cultivating a supportive leadership which helped form teachers’ positive attitudes towards curriculum reform. Moreover, enhancing trust in colleagues could develop teachers’ efficacy beliefs for practicing play-based learning. Copyright © 2020 All Academic, Inc.

This project aims at promoting the idea and implementation of digital citizenship education to Hong Kong schools and supporting in-serve teachers in professional development. Twenty teacher participants from seven local secondary schools joined the project and attended our 6-sessions (9 hours) of professional development training workshops in the academic year of 2019/2020. The training workshops delivered digital citizenship education framework and related concepts and teaching methods to the teachers, including digital citizenship, media literacy, digital commerce, digital footprint, digital etiquette, and cyberbullying. Our team also supported teachers to design their school-based digital citizenship curriculum for trial teaching and discussion of feasible pedagogies after the training workshops. After conducting quantitative data analysis before and after the training workshops, the result found that over 90% of teachers are satisfied with the training workshops. Moreover, there was a significant statistical difference in their teaching of digital citizenship on digital law, digital commerce, and digital security and safety dimensions between pre and posttest. They are more willing to teach these topics after the training. Facing the challenges caused by COVID19 in 2020, however, all Hong Kong schools were forced to close down. Therefore, our class observation has been delayed but we still found that teachers can utilize different online learning activities to implement digital citizenship education, though some teachers also reported that they were not confident to teach certain aspects such as legal dimension. This project suggests a need of equipping teachers’ understanding and teaching of digital citizenship education, and revisiting the relevant curriculum. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

In Hong Kong, STEM education has become timely only since 2016 when the government launched the related policy initiatives which impacted the education practices substantially. Particularly, learning in STEM domains has often consisted of memorization of facts devoid of deep connection, separated from life and often failing to integrate the STEM disciplines. Hence, STEM learning is urged to take place in an environment with more attention to different modes of communicating and meaning making. Individuals are required to make meaning and find ways to create personal connections to deeply internalize this knowledge. The investigations, sense-making, creativity, representation and communication of STEM-related ideas are all conducted and connected with human implications of meaningfulness. In this connection, this paper will report the study based on constructivist narrative approach (as cross-case studies) of 3 pre-service teachers majoring in STEM-based programme at teacher training institutes in Hong Kong and 3 in-service STEM teachers. The empirical study will purpose to address three research questions within STEM professional teacher identity perspective: (1) What STEM teacher should be look like and mean to them? (2) What are the factors which construct the STEM teacher identity? (3) What are the needs for professional training of STEM teachers and implications for teacher education? Empirical findings from this study will inform the implications on the context of STEM teacher identity, career and life planning education with STEM-related career aspirations and the professionalism growth of STEM teacher in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

An educational reform proposal in 2000 emphasized the need to upgrade the professional teaching competence of Hong Kong educators at all levels, with one area of focus being multiculturalism. In the current study we test a conceptual model in which teachers’ knowledge and skills of multiculturalism and teaching relationship (cultural harmony) are associated with developmentally appropriate and inappropriate beliefs and practices in the classroom. Participants were 347 preschool teachers from 12 preschools including342 women (98.6 %) and 5 men (1.4%) ages from 24 to 45 located across all five districts of Hong Kong. The hypothesized model of multicultural teaching competency as a predictor of developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices, is confirmed in the present study. Multicultural teaching knowledge can enhance developmentally appropriate teaching beliefs and practices, and reduce developmentally inappropriate practices. It is highly recommended that multicultural education be embedded in early childhood education programs for both in-service and pre-service teachers. In addition, it is suggested that researchers further study teachers’ attitudes toward multicultural education in terms of teaching beliefs and practices with a series of implicit attitude tests. Future research should also focus on environmental influences on multicultural teaching, such as school bureaucracy. Copyright © 2018 Institute of Research and Journals.