Education reform is increasingly based on emulating the features of world-class' systems that top international attainment surveys and, in England specifically, East Asia is referenced as the inspiration' for their education reforms. However, the extent to which the features identified by the UK Government accord with the situation within East Asia is problematic. This paper examines the relationship between the English representation and the reality' of East Asian education systems, using school autonomy as an illustrative example. We focus on Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, which are cited extensively to legitimate policies providing greater autonomy for schools in England. We argue firstly that the English representation has been largely discursive and inaccurate; has failed to recognise the variations across the region; and has been selected to endorse the Government's ideological preferences. Secondly, the scope, form and nature of school autonomy vary markedly, and are operationalised in each society in ways reflecting the prevailing sociopolitical priorities.

An introduction is presented which discusses various articles within the issue on topics including countries participating in large-scale assessments in education on education policy, Programme for International Student Assessment in Hong Kong, and development of regulatory interventions.

本文通過對香港教育與內地教育進行比較,談談香港教育對筆者思考教育的本質產生的啟發,並總結其中可取之處,以期有助於學校教育管理工作的開展。

Since the mid-1980s,a number of East Asian societies have consistently performed well in international tests, and these 'high performing' education systems have emerged as models of 'best practice'. Policy makers in England (as well as some other Western systems) have been keen to reference Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and South Korea when developing and promoting their own reform agendas. Although Hong Kong has been extensively cited and praised by politicians and their advisers in England local dissatisfaction with the education system has prompted a series of major education reforms. This mismatch between the two policy communities in their perceptions of the strong features of Hong Kong education is explored in this paper using documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with policymakers and other key stakeholders. We analyse the ways in which features of Hong Kong's education system are reconstructed, used, and manipulated in policymaking in England. We argues that the referencing of Hong Kong is an act of political theatre, reminiscent of a pantomime, a traditional performance built around stereotyped villains and heroes, narratives of good conquering evil, and comical set-pieces that sometimes verge on the farcical.

More and more governments use educational reforms as a tool to raise the competitiveness of their societies, and one shared feature of some of these reforms is privatization of public education. Countries in the Eastern and Western Europe alike, for instance, have implemented various educational reforms that allowed for, or promoted, privatization of education (Ball & Youdell, 2008; Patrinos, Barrera-Osorio, & Guàqueta, 2009). While privatization of education has received much academic attention, the new education privatization, in which the government financially supports the private sector’s participation in public education, has remained unexplored in many contexts (Burch, 2009), in particular in the East Asian context including South Korea and Hong Kong. Governments of South Korea and Hong Kong have circulated policy discourses which reconceptualise the private sector as a partner in public education for more than a decade. However, there has been little documentation of the actual practice of outsourcing of education delivery. This paper, drawing on three consecutive research projects funded by a tertiary institute in Hong Kong, aims to contribute to understanding this largely “hidden” phenomenon of educational privatization (Ball, Thrupp, & Forsey, 2010) focusing on government-funded outsourcing of core curriculum delivery. Understanding the focal phenomenon is necessary considering the public accountability in using public fund. It may concern, however, far more important issues of quality and equity of public education. Previous research on the quality of outsourced education is controversial (Green, 2005); some programmes have found to reproduce or even aggravate the gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of access to quality education (Burch, 2009). By mapping out the policy and practice at the government and school levels in South Korea and Hong Kong, this paper aims to explore the degree to which privatization of education is happening in the

學生享受學習，是每一位教育者的期望。可是在參與學習問題上，老師往往遇到兩個問題，一是如何帶動參與，二是如何讓參與帶來真正的喜悅。本文針對這兩個問題，介紹筆者任教香港小班教學師資培訓課程時，設計的一項涵蓋身、心、智、群的全人參與學習模式。文章首先敘述構思此模式之演變過程，包括多元智慧以及其他理論之影響；隨後簡介模式之六項元素──即身體動作、感官、較深層的自我、人際互動、想像與挑戰思考，並申述其重要性；最後列舉實例，說明如何在小學英語課堂中，應用此模式作教學活動設計，讓小班教學更能發揮其優點。

This chapter examines the role and nature of values in civic education curricula in the Asian global cities of Singapore and Hong Kong. Using a qualitative, comparative case study approach, we situate civic education in broader contexts and analyze the ways values are represented in Singapore’s Social Studies curriculum and the Liberal Studies curriculum in Hong Kong. Through our analysis of syllabus documents and broader societal discourses, we found several common core values across the two settings that simultaneously represented nationalist and global neoliberal discourses of citizenship. Rather than emphasizing political or civic concerns, curricular and societal discourses worked together to underscore self-management and the creation of orderly national societies attractive to global capital and necessary for economic growth in a competitive global economy. However, we found distinctions in each syllabus regarding approaches in values instruction. Documents in Singapore emphasized teaching values through transmissive methods, whereas, in Hong Kong, the Liberal Studies curriculum advocated a more deliberative pedagogy. The chapter poses broader questions regarding narrow, utilitarian forms of citizenship and possibilities for reimagining more critical forms of citizenship education in a globalized world.
[Copyright © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.]

Demand has risen for the introduction of career education in senior secondary schooling to enhance students' transition from study to work. Against such a background, this paper aims to discuss the curriculum reforms and supporting structures in schools and to explore the challenges of life skills planning for secondary school students in China with particular reference to Hong Kong. Literature review and examples from Hong Kong and China indicate that although various Vocational (Career) Development Education and Career and Life Planning Education (CLPE) activities and school-based curriculum development take place at schools, a clear linkage between study opportunities and career choices, enhancement of learning experiences at work through activities such as job shadowing and provision of a curriculum to enhance career and life planning across years as dimensions of intervention, seem not to be found at secondary schools in Hong Kong. This paper will also look into the implications for future development of CLPE.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.]

香港作為一個多元文化匯集的自由港,各種思想和不同價值觀在此交流碰撞、相融共存,香港學校在與多元文化的磨合過程中,逐步建構起獨具特色的教育體系。這對于隨著改革開放、日漸多元化的內地學校教育來說,具有理論和實踐上的借鑒意義。筆者跟隨廣西協力扶貧基金會的教育考察團到香港進行了為期一周的考察學習,充分感受到了香港教育獨具特色的辦學思想與教育體制。在此,將從香港教育的辦學形式、學制、德育內容、課程設置等方面作進一步的闡述。