Teachers and teacher salaries are the two major scarce resources in the provision of education. Teacher shortage problems are common and have been a concern in nearly all countries. High teacher attritions other than retirement have called public and government attention in enhancing retention of teachers as a way to solve teacher shortage problems. The shortage of teachers varies with subjects and levels. In Hong Kong, the shortage of quality English teachers has long been a social concern because of the importance for its citizen to attain high English proficiency levels to maintain the competitiveness as an international city.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the predictors affecting the retention tendency of inservice English teachers in Hong Kong secondary schools from the labour economics perspective with a quantitative survey. Through a more thorough understanding of the predictors affecting their retention tendency, policies can be formulated with a view to enhancing the retention of English subject teachers. The survey was carried out in September, 2002. Questionnaires were sent to 111 publicly funded secondary schools in Hong Kong. A total of 490 completed questionnaires have been collected from an estimated sample size of 1332 English subject teachers in Hong Kong secondary schools. The response rate is 36.8%.
The results show that three domains of predictors: compensation structure, working conditions and personal variables affect the retention tendency of English teachers to continue teaching English. The variance explained by the whole model is 0.211.
For the domain of compensation structure, the three factors extracted from the alternative bases for paying teachers including differential pay, competencies pay and teach load pay are significant predictors of their retention tendency.
For the domain of working conditions for teachers, the results show that the classroom teaching conditions and the school support are two extracted

Background: This paper discusses a leadership model grounded in an investigation of the phenomenon of principal leadershop in Hong Kong Protestant Christian secondary schools of one denomination, two years after the change of sovereignty to China (1st July, 1997).
Focus of discussion and comments: Using a hermeneutic phenomenological methdology, 9 principals and 16 senior teachers were interviewed to gather their perceptions about the principal's leadership role, and collect relevant documents. Subsequent analysis and interpretation of data indicated the complexity of the leadership role. Based on research findings and comparison with the literature, the emergent model comprises four broad leadership roles (in italics) which were correspondingly informed by leadership concepts: (1) Christian leadership-administering Christian education; (2) Instuctional leadership-teaching and learning; (3) Transformational leadership-transforming the school community; and (4) Leadership for school-baesed management-SBM and development.
Conclusion: As the principal leadership role was enacted on Christian principles, the discussion of the model and implications drawn may advance school leadership and infrom practitioners locally and internationally.
背景：回歸香港（九七年七月一日）之後兩年，作者調查香港基督教其中一派別中學之校長領導角式，本文討論研究資料分析歸納出來的領導者模式。
討論焦點及論點：作者採用「現像推測」之研究方法，訪問了九位校長及十六位資深教師，收集他們對校長領導式的看法，這有了甚麼轉變，以及有關文件，然後根據資料加以分析及推測，發現這個式複雜。將研究發現與文獻作出及比較後，浮現出一個包含了有四個範疇的領導模式：（一）基督教領導－基督教教育行政；（二）教學式領導－教學與學習；（三）轉化式領導－轉化學校社群；（四）「校本管理」之領導－「校本管理」之發展。
總結：因校長照聖經原則去實踐領導，討論這個領導模式及表達其潛在意義，或可推進學校領導及為本地或其他國家之同行者提供資料。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

Background: The "Primary school curriculum leadership" scheme was first introduced to Hong Kong primary schools by the Education Bureau in year 2002/03. An additional teaching post which was known as Primary Schoolmaster/Schoolmistress (Curriculum Development) – or PSM(CD), had been created to help the school head to lead internal curriculum development in primary school. This scheme was considered to be a pioneering initiative in Hong Kong as well as the Chinese culture societies.
Aims: The paper reviews the curriculum leadership development in Hong Kong primary schools by examining the impacts of the work of PSM(CD) on internal curriculum development and school development in the context of curriculum reform, the challenges and difficulties faced by the PSM(CD)s in discharging their responsibilities, their successful experiences, and provides implications for future development.
Comments: PSM(CD)s claimed that to carry out their responsibilities, they needed to perform different roles such as co-worker, mentor, innovator, role model, and leader. Furthermore, the most important factors that would hinder their work were school organizational factors, supports of school heads and colleagues, readiness of the school as a whole for change, and personal limitations.
Conclusion: This paper argues while some achievements had been made since the introduction of the PSM(CD) scheme, it is also worth our attention to note that this scheme promoted teacher leadership development at the school sites, which eventually contributed positive impacts on whole school development. On the other hand, it is noted that PSM(CD)s would encounter many difficulties and challenges in discharging their duties. There is urgent need to find out solutions to help the newly appointed PSM(CD)s to develop their competences and become a "successful" curriculum leader. This paper also concludes the successful criteria of the work of PSDM(CD) which should be a useful reference for the

Survey study by means of a questionnaire on achievement goal orientations was conducted with four hundred and seventy-three pre-service student teachers of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Two contrasting goals were identified, namely: learning goals and performance goals. Psychometric properties of the questionnaire gave support to its applicability in the local context. Statistical analyses indicated there was no significant difference in achievement goal orientations with courses and electives but sex. Female students were found to be more performance goal oriented than male students. Explanation of the differences in achievement goal orientations within sex group was sought in terms of socio-cultural factors. Implications were drawn for teacher educators to consider in the future planning and development of teacher education programmes.
[Copyright of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre Journal is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre at http://www.edb.org.hk/hktc]

In a time of mass schooling in most parts of the world, the discourse of the owoman primary teachero is often the subject of discourse. Yet most stories of these women teachers emerge from other (Western) contexts, with little known about how changing education processes affect the gendered identities of women in other cultural settings. This paper explores how women teachers negotiate their gendered identities in Hong Kong, where modernization has already mingled with the indigenous Chinese culture. It provides the stories of four Chinese women teachers as they engage in ongoing construction and negotiations of gendered identities over their life histories in Hong Kong. All are ethnically Chinese, of different ages and at different stages of their personal and professional lives, and all have grown up in Hong Kong. A framework of post-colonial concepts of hybridity and border crossing helps to suggest how identity resources develop in relation to a range of contemporary practices which are experienced as both pressures and opportunities. These Chinese women teachers' identities are seen to be complex, fluid and multi-faceted, continually under construction in their daily lives, with changes experienced in both work and family settings.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791003721978]

In this paper, I posit a hybrid conceptualisation of women teachers' identities in the globalising and localising negotiation of gender. Drawing on Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridities, this paper argues for a fluid, hybrid and multifaceted reality of women teachers' lives in the areas of family, the husband and wife relationship, and the place of the child in the family as they engage in workplaces. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese women primary school teachers first individually and then in groups of four or five in Hong Kong where globalisation meets with the indigenous Chinese culture. Implications for teacher education are discussed.
[Copyright of Gender & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540250802581834]

This article reports on both writers' experiences as participants in a collaborative action research project in Hong Kong. The article draws a distinction between teachers as research consumers and teachers as research producers. The authors suggest that active teacher agency in research is a positive element in the professional development of English teachers. Teachers primarily become research producers through involvement in some form of action research project. Although action research is increasingly recognized as a teacher competency in Hong Kong, it is nevertheless difficult for teachers to initiate and conduct when research is not seen as a core professional activity by their school with subsequent limited support. The authors view collaboration with professional researchers as a positive way for teachers to be apprenticed into the research process. The article ends by suggesting possible strategies that would support and encourage teachers to undertake research.
[Copyright of English Teaching: Practice & Critique is the property of Universidad del Zulia.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://edlinked.soe.waikato.ac.nz/research/journal/index.php?id=1]

A teacher shortage in Hong Kong in core subjects, such as English, has led to interest in the recruitment and retention of second-career teachers. Drawing upon Wenger's theory of identity formation and using data from interviews with eight second-career English language teachers in Hong Kong, this article explores how second-career teachers may be better supported in their professional development. The study found that second-career teachers' skills and experiences were not valued within their schools and that this was reflected in a rigid division the participants drew between the institutionally endorsed identity positions made available to them and the type of teachers they wanted to be. In response to this antagonism, second- career teachers used their position of non-participation to establish identity territories that connected aspects of their first-career identities, such as engineers and managers, to their emerging teacher identities. It is suggested that non-participation, a potentially negative experience in Wenger's framework, was deployed by this group of teachers to create the space they needed to enact their own preferred teacher identities. Implications for attracting and retaining second-career teachers are discussed.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660903052449]