Based on the observations in Hong Kong and the Region, this chapter aims to analyze the reform syndrome, bottle-neck effects and their impacts on teachers and school education and highlight the direction of new developments. In a context of globalization, the experiences of educational reforms in Hong Kong particularly in the past decade may provide a good case for understanding the dynamics of educational reforms and drawing theoretical and practical implications for research, policy formulation and implementation not only in Hong Kong but also in other international communities.
[Copyright © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.]

Generally speaking, after the Chinese Communist Party had gained political power, the colonial Hong Kong Government intended to resist the spread and influence of communism and to that end implemented Civic Education in Hong Kong. The present study disagrees with this simple description and analysis. The postwar Hong Kong was confronted with the complex Chinese civil war situation while the British maintained their colonial governance. Faced with the rising power of the Communist Party, the victory of the war and the outbreak of the Korean War, the entire geo-political transformation process influenced the administration and strategy of the Hong Kong Government. The question was that did Hong Kong conduct the Nationalist education as civic education before 1949 and under the cultural and educational influence of the Communist across the border? Hong Kong had to implement the embargo policy of the United Nations and the Cold War’s strategy between the capitalist world and the communist blocs. It was not necessary for Civic Education wholly revealing a responding problem but it can partly explain the real situation.
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在2013/14學年就讀公營學校的非華語學童為25,384人，政府以非華語學童政策來照顧這些少數族裔的教育；而因近年南亞裔學童在香港增加，指定學校的存廢和非華語學童學習中文成為了香港教育的爭議課題。為了剖析香港少數族裔學童的教育情況，本文從少數族裔在香港的教育、政府對非華語學童教育的照顧、非華語學童教育的現況、香港指定學校的興替、支援非華語學童的中文學習、非華語學童的其他需要和挑戰等方面作出分析和討論。
[Copyright © 2015 香港青年協會.]

This study tested how collaboration, as a component of school capacity and a potential mediator, affect the relationship between principal leadership and teacher professional learning in Hong Kong primary schools. To investigate teacher perceptions of principal leadership and school capacity, two questionnaires were combined to use. The online survey was administered with a sample of 970 teachers from 32 primary schools. The orthodox regression based dour-step causal approach (Baron & Kenny, 1986) integrated with the bootstrapping method, was adopted for mediating analysis, with the composite score of principal leadership as the predictor. Upon the affirmation of the presence of the mediating effects, significance and strength were further assessed. This study stepped further to test the overall effect of the seven core areas of principal leadership, as independent predictors, on teacher professional leaning via the possible mediating effects of collaboration. The findings affirmed that, collaboration did play a mediating role between the relationship of principal leadership and teacher professional learning in Hong Kong primary schools.

Language in education debates in Hong Kong focus on the role and status of English (as the former colonial language and an important means for international communication); Cantonese, the mother tongue of the majority of the population; and Putonghua, the national language of China. I will examine language in education policy from an historical perspective, with particular emphasis on the period after the retrocession of Hong Kong in 1997. The questions I will address include: How have the role and status of each of the three language changed over time? What are the major influences on policy decisions? What do policy changes reveal about educational values and ideologies in Hong Kong? Who wins and who loses out?