過去十多年，香港亦進行了翻天覆地的教改，到現在差不多所有重要改革項目都已落實推行，除龐大的政策資源外，教育工作者也付上了無盡的心血和代價。可惜家長及社會人士並沒有得應許的美滿教育，普遍失望，失去信心。教師及校長多感到極大工作壓力而無奈，身心疲累。近來，愈來愈多社會人士要求全面檢討教改。到底香港的教改出了什麼問題？ 本書作者鄭燕祥教授，是國際知名的教育學者，長期關注香港的教改，多次發表文章評論教改，引起極大迴響。現在他重新檢視過去十多年來對香港教改的觀察、分析和思考，以不同角度分析香港學校系統的改革，並討論不同類別教育的政策改革和發展，以期讓未來的教改能更有效實踐。

In this paper we outline the provision of pre-primary education in the Hong Kong SAR and discuss how the educational reform initiatives of 2000 (Learning to Learn) and global imperatives provided the impetus to reshape a new educational approach to early childhood education. We use the example of a half-day pre-primary (kindergarten) programme to illustrate the ways in which policy and guidelines are enacted and how they appear to reflect all the attributes of the reform movement that have adopted contemporary ideas from the international educational arena. We highlight the interpretations and enactments of these new educational imperatives in a system that has a long history of different cultural pedagogical traditions that often do not resonate with western pedagogical approaches.
[Copyright © 2016 TACTYC.]

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.

This paper examines to what extent and how the data and results of PISA have been used for various education stakeholders and to what extent PISA affect educational policy and practices in Hong Kong. From the point of view of the government, PISA has played an important role in supporting and legitimising government educational reform since 2000. It has supported curricula frameworks and to some extent development and reform from the philosophical and educational viewpoints. However, the mass media and general public seldom went beyond ranking to look at other variables that might inform policy with the exception of some researchers and curriculum developers. Nonetheless, considerable effort has been expended by key researchers in Hong Kong in disseminating information about PISA prior to and after the administration of each assessment and in sharing the Hong Kong results, through such means as press conferences, seminars, international conferences, research and professional development. Experience from the case of Hong Kong suggested that, by keeping international assessment low stake but making good use of it to inform different stakeholders and initiating teacher professional development could be a cost-effective tool to drive educational reform. However, there is a tendency of overuse or abuse of international assessments by making international assessment high stakes, which might create unnecessary pressure for participating schools, teachers and students.