School to work transition is an important aspect of lifelong learning that has increased in significance as the knowledge-based economy takes off in developed countries. Rapid structural economic changes, the importance of innovation, and a shorter lifecycle of products require education systems to adjust to the needs of economies and individuals. Educational reforms in many countries aim to improve school students' readiness for their important move to post-school life. Countries organize different pathways for students following secondary school level that are designed to meet both students' demands and the needs of economies. This article explores Hong Kong students' aspirations and realities. Although the majority of students plan to complete the final year of high school and 91.5% planned to undertake the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) to be eligible for higher education, in reality a significant number of school leavers do not perform well and should undertake training for employment. In addition, many students who are eligible for tertiary education cannot be admitted to government sponsored universities due to the limited number of places. This article begins with a consideration of students' aspirations, and then outlines the realities of transition and current issues. It concludes with some suggested policy measures that could improve equity during this school to work transition period.
[Educational Research for Policy and Practice is a copyright of Springer, 2017]

The present investigation validated a short form of Career Development Self-Efficacy Inventory (CD-SEI) in students with a wide range of special educational needs (SEN). Participants were a sample of S3 to S6 SEN students who have been integrated in regular schools in Hong Kong (N =103). The SF-CD-SEI consists of five key domains to assess students' self-efficacy in career planning, career goal setting, training selection, job hunt preparation, and job hunting. The results showed good reliability estimates for the whole scale and for all five sub-scales. Based on previous research on validating the complete CD-SEI, a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed to test three competing models of the internal structure of the SF-CD-SEI. The results showed the high order model (model 3) had the best model fit compared to one general factor model (model 1) and five-factor model (model 2). These findings were consistent with those identified in previous studies with non-SEN students. The SF-CD-SEI provides researchers, educators and practitioners a useful instrument to assess SEN students' competences in career planning in order to develop self-efficacy enhancement interventions to cater for these students' career development needs.
[Copyright © 2015 The Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.]

自從施政報告於 2014 提倡全面推行生涯規劃教育，生涯規劃教育成為高中教育的一個嶄新領域。政府建議生涯規劃教育應以全校參與模式推行，老師則可以由升學及就業輔導老師逐步過渡至生涯規劃教育老師，扮演協調者、指導者和輔導者的角色。本文嘗試引用一項香港國際比較研究的部份數據，探討老師在生涯規劃教育的角色，以及未來香港生涯規劃教育的發展方向。
[Copyright © 2016 香港教師中心.]

Career planning plays a salient role in determining the individuals’ goal setting, work engagement, and outcomes. In school settings, helping students to establish good career planning would contribute not only to maximize their potential to learn and achieve based on their personal strengths, but also to suit their career development needs. However, to students with special educational needs (SEN), they are usually the group facing greater challenges in career planning and development compared to regular students. In the Hong Kong context, the present study took the initiativeto examine the aspirations, expectations, and challenges of post-secondary school transition among SEN students and their parents. A qualitative approach through a series of focus group interviews was adopted. Over 70 SEN students from both mainstream schools (n =38) and special schools (n =34) and 37 parents of SEN student participated in this study. The results were categorized into career aspirations, difficulties and challenges, expectations and recommendations of SEN students and their parents. The results draw educators’ attention of the found inadequacy of positive attitude to career planning and low confidence levels to achieve desirable post-school transition outcomes among SEN students. Implications are discussed in relation to SEN students’ needs of career planning training and career development.

The present study is the first empirical research in Hong Kong to evaluate a peer career counselling programme consisting of a 3.5-day training and a school-based service project. Using a quasi-experimental design, the evaluation was based on the Career Readiness Scales ratings at three waves of data collection. Results showed that the programme was effective in enhancing peer counsellors' career readiness. The effect came mainly from the training and less from the service project.

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.]

Since the start of the new century, basic and senior schools have started to encounter curriculum reforms, and vocational education has experienced substantial changes. Based on the changing context in the past 10 or more years, this study examines the issue of school-to-work transition from the perspective of the vocationalization of secondary education in Hong Kong. In addition to providing the results of different studies, three approaches are proposed. These approaches include enhancement of generic competencies through technology, introduction of lost-cost programs in less gender-specific areas, such as business studies, and emphasis on entrepreneurship education.
[Copyright © 2016 James Nicholas Publishers.]

This article explains why the massification of higher education in Hong Kong has, contrary to the predictions of received wisdom, failed to enhance the upward social mobility of the youth in the city. Building upon recent literature in political science, it argues that massification can take different forms, which in turn determine the effects of massification on various social groups. Through exploring three critical phases in the city’s higher education reform, this article demonstrates how higher education policies have been heavily shaped by the interests of the city’s elites, who, on the one hand, see the expansion of higher education as a solution to such social and economic problems as unemployment and regional integration but, on the other, remain reluctant to increase public spending on the education sector. As a result, higher education has expanded almost exclusively in the private sector. Due to poor planning and implementation, graduates from self-financed programmes are severely disadvantaged in terms of employability, resulting in wage compression and unemployment. The findings of this study shed light on the regressive nature of higher education.
[Copyright © 2015 Routledge.]

The teaching profession, similar to other human service occupations, requires recruits to have a strong sense of social responsibility, as their commitment is to help their students to become better citizens. Success in recruiting qualified and committed teachers, nevertheless, depends on whether the teaching career is attractive to quality and motivated young people. This paper reports a quantitative and qualitative study of the perceptions of teaching as a career by graduates from twenty secondary schools with different backgrounds in Hong Kong. It analyzed the relationship of the characteristics of these students with their interest in teaching, and examined the factors which may have influenced their choice of teaching as a career. It is hoped that the findings of the study could increase our understanding of young people's perceptions of a teaching career in different societies, and help policy makers adopt more effective measures to increase the attractiveness of teaching to qualified school leavers.