The establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has brought about enormous structural, social, economical, political and cultural changes to society. The government, the public, and other parties concerned find the need to cope with the multi-faceted changes by reviewing the existing systems and policies as to provide information for improvement or reform, wherever necessary. Education is undoubtedly on the reform agenda. Art education, which forms part of the core curriculum of general education and plays a role for developing an all-round being, deserves due attention. This study intends to obtain a thorough picture on the changes of the philosophy and rationale of art education in the past forty years by a descriptive study on the aims of art education in the official art syllabi of junior secondary schools. The study finds that there is a paradigm shift in art education in Hong Kong: from emotional personal experience to the cognitive and affective learning; from a single dimension of educational aims to multi-dimensional; from mere personal development to personal development, socialization, economic productivity, and further learning.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

There is a general belief that ‘play’ serves a very useful function in the learning and development of young children. It is a vital way through which children reconcile their inner lives with the outside world. It is a central activity in kindergartens and nurseries. ‘Learning through play’ is recommended as the mode of learning and teaching of young children in many countries. In Hong Kong, it was documented in an official education report in 1986 and is the key guideline for the implementation of the aims of early childhood education for the next millennium. However, due to the messy nature and ambiguity in definition, ‘play’ is difficult to realize in the classroom context. A case study of six kindergarten teachers in training was conducted to investigate the issues of the links between the theories and practice of ‘play’. The findings showed immense difficulties in capitalizing the benefits of ‘play’ in practice and a huge gap between the practitioners’ espoused intentions and their actions in classroom. The study highlighted the complex nature of learning and teaching and reflected the need for a holistic reform in education.
[Copyright © 2004 Nova Science Publishers.]

In Hong Kong, except for Art and Craft and Physical Education, official approved school textbooks for pupils and handbooks for teachers are widely used in primary schools. When Art and craft primary teachers in Hong Kong plan for their lessons, they can only follow the official curriculum prepared by the Curriculum Development Council of the Education Department of Hong Kong. Thus, the official curriculum plays a very important role in guiding the primary Art and Craft teachers in planning their taught curriculum. In the first part of this chapter, a brief historical account on the introduction of art education in Hong Kong is given. Then, the chapter examines the developmental trend of the aims of the planned Hong Kong Primary Schools Art and Craft Curriculum from the 1950s to the 1990s. Finally, it discusses both the external and internal factors that influence the art education in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This paper discusses the transmission of traditional culture in schools from the perspectives of curriculum design and teaching approach. It focuses on the establishment of a Chinese music curriculum model, the content of which is a part of a larger study concerning the role of Chinese music in secondary school education in Hong Kong. The study employed a two-prong survey approach by utilizing a questionnaire and a list of pre-set interview questions in order that the data collected could complement and supplement each other. The questionnaire survey was conducted among 426 secondary school music teachers with a return rate of 51.5% while the interviews were conducted among 26 professionals from the cultural sector in Hong Kong. As a part of the results of this study, a curriculum model was established, which underpins a comprehensive approach in the teaching of Chinese music encompassing various issues in education associated with the problem of the selection of teaching contents and teaching approaches, especially in regard to traditional culture.
[Copyright © 2003 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]