在教學環境中，如課室的擺設、學習情境、課程和選材、教師表現、學校行政措施和地區的教育目標等，都會影響學生的個人成長和學習愉快感，而鄭燕祥 (1995) 認為教師直接施行整個教育過程，他們對教育目標的達成起著重要影響。在探究教育是否成功時，教師的角色和功能備受重視，Burton (1991) 更指出教師對學生愉快地學習及達致最好的成果起著最大的貢獻。本文旨在探討香港中學班主任的角色和功能，和他們對學生成長和學習愉快感的影響。
[Copyright © 2000 朗文香港教育.]

Two teaching departments of a Sixth Form College in Hong Kong with teaching effectiveness are identified by the criteria of students consistently achieving value-added results for the past three years in the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examinations and relatively high students’ satisfaction with the teaching of the departments. Research was conducted to look at possible factors contributing to the teaching effectiveness of the departments. Strong leadership of department heads, outstanding management and good department climate such as high morale, professional interaction and good team work were found to be important factors leading to teaching effectiveness of the departments. Schools should attach importance to the above factors in order to improve teaching effectiveness at the teaching department level and teacher educators should develop skills of potential and serving teachers on leadership, management, and building good working relationship among colleagues.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

This study compares the development and placement of teacher education within the tertiary education in Japan and Hong Kong. Historically both places initiated formal teacher education separate from university training as part of binary systems, and later moved teacher training into the university secotr. Both places retain mono-technical teacher training institutions along side teacher training within comprehensive universities. Both societies are involved in major educational reforms in order to respond to the economic challenges of globalization and current social ills attributed to shortcomings in the educational system. These reforms are closely linked to improving the quality (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of teachers. At the same time, demographic realities have significantly lowered the demand for teachers in both societies, and both governments are under pressure to reduce the scope of teacher education programs, primarily through institutional consolidation. Research on mergers indicates that these processes are more costly than usually expected, and may not result in the economy and efficiency that often drives the process to begin with. This paper concludes that is important to initiate merger processes with care, and not to sacrifice other important goals (such as innovative approaches to the production of high quality teachers) in the course of consolidation.