This paper provides a background to the 2 year Pilot Project on Integration completed by the Hong Kong Government in 1999. It considers the implementation of the Project, the difficulties faced by the Government in recruiting schools and the preparation of the participating schools. The paper describes the aims of the Pilot Project in integrating students with disabilities in primary and secondary schools and outlines the methods used by the research team to evaluate the Project. The paper discusses some of the main findings of the evaluation study and considers the central issues and challenges for Hong Kong set against a back cloth of the political changes surrounding the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. A number of recommendations for successful integration strategies for Hong Kong are indicated.
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This study involved 34 female adolescent students attending mathematics classes in a girls' hostel in Hong Kong. The subjects' ages ranged from 12 to 18 years. All students exhibited varying degrees of emotional and behavioural problems, and all experienced learning difficulties in mathematics. The study aimed to discover whether the use of a simple token reward system would increase the students' work output, participation rate, accuracy, and neatness of bookwork during mathematics lessons, and whether the system would also have a positive influence on the girls' attitude toward mathematics. The four-week intervention programme involved the provision of token rewards during lesson time to every girl who showed any improvement in any of the four aspects of learning. Baseline measures were taken over a two-week period before the intervention commenced, and regular measurements were taken during and immediately after the programme. The same measures were taken again four weeks after the reinforcement programme had ended to check for maintenance. The results showed that the use of tokens did lead to significant improvements (in most cases p <.01 or better) in work output, participation rate, accuracy and neatness while the programme was in operation. Performance declined, however, in all but neatness once the tokens were no longer in use. The decline in scores did not regress to the baseline level, but most differences were no longer statistically significant. Very minor attitudinal changes in a positive direction were noted; but only in one case did these reach statistical significance.
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Education is increasingly driven by the concept of quality assurance. Early indications from a Hong Kong project to integrate children with learning difficulties and disabilities into mainstream schools suggest that integration can have a positive impact, both on pedagogy and on the organizational thinking of mainstream schools, offering opportunities for school improvement and quality development.
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This article, while supporting the notion of inclusive education, urges caution in the rate at which the necessary changes take place. The writer acknowledges the important role played by special schools in meeting the needs of students with moderate to severe disabilities, and suggests that special schools must continue to exist in order to provide the full range of placement options. Some of the difficulties involved in implementing inclusive education are discussed, including the demands made upon the regular class teacher, the problem of class sizes in ordinary schools in Hong Kong, and the need for additional professional training with a focus on mixed-ability teaching.
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This paper aims to review the provision of special education and the need of Integration/ Inclusive Education [I/IE] in the Hong Kong context. The paper begins with the definition of relevant terms and follows it with a brief review of the existing provision of the segregated schooling in Hong Kong. Some preliminary comments on the "Pilot Project on Integration of Children with Special Needs in Ordinary Schools" and experiences from overseas on implementing Integration/ Inclusive Education will be given at the end of the paper.
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The Hong Kong government introduced a scheme to include students with disabilities into mainstream schools in 1997. This can be seen as the beginning of the "inclusion movement". The main problems of inclusion are its "one size fits all" philosophy and the belief that "the least restrictive environment" is exclusively the regular classroom. There are four major obstacles to implementing full inclusion in Hong Kong. (1) The existing teacher to student ratio is already unacceptably high. Putting disabled students into regular classrooms without decreasing the class size will burn-out teachers, without any obvious benefit to the disabled students. (2) Most teachers do not have any training to deal with disabled students. Without a qualified teacher, disabled students are unlikely to be receiving high-quality educational services. (3) Disabled students are put into classes with lower academic performance, a practice which presently compromises the learning potential of all students involved. (4) Hong Kong teachers in general education have inadequate experience in collaborating with other professionals so that providing teacher assistants to deal with special needs students may not be as helpful as it appears. In summary, full inclusion may not be the only answer. It should be recognised that disabled students have their own special needs which the regular classrooms may not be able to meet.
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The purpose of the present study was to explore, from an insider perspective, the work experience of local special school personnel. A qualitative methodological approach was taken and a semi-structured interviewing technique was adopted. An opportunity sample of five Principals, six teachers and three school social workers from six local special schools for students with mild mental handicap participated in this study. Data were analyzed using a constant comparative method and content analysis. The findings seem to suggest that the special school teachers in this study faced the dilemma of having competing roles within the school and that they could function as either caregiver or an educator. The two most pronounced themes that emerged from the data are that the local special school personnel in this study appeared to be isolated in terms of feedback and support and the five Principals were regarded as the only leaders to provide directions for the development of their schools. The results therefore demonstrate the need to develop intra- and inter-school support networks for local special school personnel to become more responsive to the needs of the classroom community. A number of recommendations for improvement in teacher education and in-service training are also discussed.
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Previous studies have suggested that placing students in ability groups for teaching purposes can have negative consequences on the self-esteem and motivation of the students placed in the lowest groups. The study reported here explored this phenomenon in relation to students in a Band 4-5 secondary school in Hong Kong. A self-report questionnaire, with items covering classroom motivation and attitude, was used to elicit responses from 212 students in the first and second year. The students were from three different ability groups, ranging from high ability (relative to a Band 4-5 school) to low ability. Results indicated significant differences between the mean scores for students in the highest and lowest ability groups in seven out of twenty items in the questioonaire. In general the findings indicate a less optimistic attitude and a reduced level of motivation in students from the lowest group. Research evidence has also suggested that ability grouping can have a negative impact on teachers' motivation and expectancy in relation to the lowest-ability groups. This study explored the expectancies, beliefs and attitudes of 25 teachers who work with the students identified above. It was found that the teachers typically held more negative views of low-ability classes. The article includes discussion of the implications of these findings in terms of modifying teachers' attitudes and improving the learning opportunities for low-ability secondary students.
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