New vice-principals (VPs) inevitably experience high levels of uncertainty when assuming the position, and undergo a process of socialisation, involving engaging with both professional and relational sources of support in schools, to adjust to their changing role. Drawing on socialisation theories, this exploratory study proposes that novice VPs would rely on the school's structural feedback mechanism, peer affirmation and principal's sponsorship in their adaptation process; the first of these is professionally oriented whereas the remaining two are relationally oriented. The study further argues that VPs would experience varying degrees of dependence on these factors corresponding to the stage of their development in the socialisation process. Findings of the study, informed by a Hong Kong data set covering VPs in their first, second, and third years of tenure respectively, support these propositions. Peer affirmation appears to be a continuous source of support to VPs in all tenure groups and it stands at odds with principal's sponsorship. The effects of the structural feedback mechanism and principal's sponsorship on VP's transition are only evident in the 2-year group, with the former being positive and the latter negative. Implications of the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge.]

This study aims at elaborating the reform policy effects on school leadership practices for quality educational development in the evolving hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures in Hong Kong. Why were education reforms and changes intensified in Hong Kong's education system in the post-1997 decades? How were these reform policies effectively implemented to bring about the changes in the school community? What insights into educational development can be drawn from the policy effects of school-based improvement on school leadership in the changing cultural context? The findings derived from the content analysis of the meanings of the articles selected by a systematic review approach show an urgent need for success in the political and cultural shift in alignment with the international trend of neoliberal-driven educational outcomes in the post-1997 period. School leadership was turned into collaborative whole-school participation in policy indigenising for improvement in a highly accountable context. These insights inspired us to conceptualise a framework of quality education development in policy borrowing/indigenising in school-based improvement. Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The education quality assurance policy and the high speed of knowledge expansion knowledge have impacted on and created challenges for school management. The nature of school management becomes more challenging, complex, analytic and data driven. Developing an innovative management approach to support schools to leverage knowledge from the existing organisational information and data resources to plan for improvement will provide practical help to school leaders and also contribute to the existing school management theories. This study aims to examine the effect of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) four modes of knowledge conversion including socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation on enhancing strategic planning capacity of schools in Hong Kong, and to identify the critical success factors for institutionalizing the SECI knowledge creation mechanism in the Hong Kong school context. This study examines whether institutionalising the SECI mechanism in schools could enhance their strategic planning capacities. Experimental research design were adopted as the research strategy. A quantitative questionnaire survey were conducted to collect data from secondary schools in Hong Kong. Multilevel structural equation modelling were applied to examine the predictive effects of the mechanism on strategic planning capacity and to identify the school level and teacher level contextual factors for institutionalising the SECI mechanism. Results show that the externalization and combination processes support the planning, implementation and evaluation processes, and collaborative culture is identified as the critical success factor to facilitate the externalization and combination processes for creating knowledge for implementing the strategic plan. Nurturing a culture of systems thinking in the schools are critical to managing effective strategic planning processes. The identification of collaborative culture for institutionalizing the SECI mechanism in schools is

To respond to the growing concerns about the need for university students to learn generic skills to complement their disciplinary expertise, many universities have included General Education (GE) in their curriculum. A new general education framework entitled "General University Requirements" (GUR) was implemented at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in the 2012/13 academic year. A fiveyear longitudinal project using multiple evaluation strategies was conducted to evaluate the GUR, including objective outcome evaluation (online survey), Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus (CLA+), subjective outcome evaluation (Student Feedback Questionnaire), and qualitative evaluation (focus groups, longitudinal case studies and document analyses). With reference to the second year of program implementation, results from different evaluation strategies consistently demonstrated that the GUR subjects were effective in promoting the five desired graduate attributes as defined by PolyU (i.e., problem solving, critical thinking ability, effective communication, ethical leadership and lifelong learning). Both students and teachers perceived the subject contents, teaching and learning methods, and teaching staff in GUR subjects favorably though several challenges were also noted. Copyright © 2015 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

近年本港出現多所由教育統籌局倡議成立的特殊學校暨資源中心，期望能為就讀於主流學校的具特殊教育需要學童及其教師提供支援，解決他們在學與教上面對的困難。這些特殊學校暨資源中心除提供一般的特殊教育服務外，承擔了融合教育的先導角色。就此，政府理應清晰地保證其適切的資源投入；在營運過程中，鼓勵及輔導這些機構因應實際需求，提供多元化的支援服務；而對其產出亦要有一定的問責機制，監察資源的投放是否能符合成本效益原則。這項措施實為本地特殊教育發展的一個重要里程，其成敗關係著融合教育的推展是否暢順，相信這是業界的共識。 本文作者從教育政策的制定、學校組織變改革兩個視點嘗試初步分析這項措施，指出多項在應然及實然層面間可能存在的問題，並提出知識型經濟社會下特殊學校暨資源中心的存在意義及可能模式。期望能引起業界關注及討論。 With the recent development on the pilot project to develop special schools into resource centers by the Education and Manpower Bureau for supporting students with special educational needs being integrated into the mainstream schools, a number of special schools are acting as pioneers for developing integrated education in Hong Kong. The Government should therefore take an active role for providing resources as well as monitoring the impact of the pilot project as the project will become one of the key milestones in the development of special education services as well as integrated education in Hong Kong. The article attempted to discuss the important issues involved in developing special schools into resource centers and the possible strategies for promoting such development.
[Copyright of 香港特殊教育論壇 is the property of 香港特殊教育學會有限公司. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk/seshk-org-hk/c_publication]

香港的教育及課程改革要求學校進行各層面的變化去配合社會需要，主流及特殊學校都積極在主流的基礎課程上進行學校本位課程發展的工作，校本課程發展無可避免為學校執行「個別化教育計劃」帶來了有系統的改變；學校亦要進行有步驟的教師培訓去提升教師的專業能力及賦權教師推動校本課程及對特殊教育需要的支援。本文描述兩間收取中度智障學生的特殊學校，如何按部就班地重整課程及發展學習階段性課程為本的基線評估去匡監察學生進度。其中並討論所涉及以行動取向研究歷程的各種改變元素，從而確立了一整個實施課程及「個別化教育計劃」的行政體系，使未來的檢視及發展工作有一個清晰的流程及行政管理系統去跟進，是值得持續推動及推廣的一個特殊學校發展系統，並提出對校本及中央課程發展政策的一些反思及啟示。 With the urge for school changes to meet the new societal demands by both the education and curriculum reform in Hong Kong, both mainstream and special schools are active in adopting the mainstream curriculum as the basis for their school-based development. School-based curriculum development will inevitably call for systemic changes on the implementation of the Individualised Education Program (IEP) of the students with special educational needs within these schools. Coupled with these changes will be the need for stepwise professional development to empower teachers with the professional competence to implement both the school-based curriculum and support measures for special needs. The paper provides an account of the process through which two special schools for moderately mentally handicapped children restructured their school curriculun and developed key stage wise and curriculum-based baseline assessment procedures for monitoring the progress of learning of their students. The various elements being involved with the school-based curriculum development process using action-oriented research as the guiding approach for its development were discussed. The project generated a clear flow process for implementing IEP and a comprehensive administrative system for further follow up and evaluation of the curriculum development process. Implications for further development work on school-based curriculum and the policy for central curriculum framework to support special needs were discussed.
[Copyright of 香港特殊教育論壇 is the property of 香港特殊教育學會有限公司. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk