Hong Kong went through a complete reform in its higher education curriculum, incorporating opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and holistic competency development. Almost eight years have passed since the reform, yet little is known about the current state of students' holistic competency development across different disciplines. Students' self-evaluation of their capacities in holistic competencies can provide us indirect evidence of student development of these competencies for quality assurance. This study does not only aim to explore how undergraduates in Hong Kong self-assessed their holistic competencies, but also to identify whether there were disciplinary differences. To do so, 2192 undergraduate students from six universities in Hong Kong were surveyed using the validated Students' Perception of Holistic Competencies Questionnaire. Analysis of the quantitative data revealed that students generally rated themselves strongest in Moral Values but weakest in Interpersonal and Leadership Competencies. However, no substantial mean difference across the different disciplines was evident in all six holistic competencies investigated. The overall results indicated that undergraduates in Hong Kong generally believe that they have a moderately high level of capability in holistic competencies. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier.

Background: The current study investigates school contextual effects on students' academic self-concept and achievement, that is, peer socioeconomic effect and big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE), in four Nordic education systems (i.e., Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and selected Chinese education systems (Hong Kong and Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang). The two school contextual effects are studied simultaneously to negate the confounding effects of student and school socioeconomic status (SES), academic self-concept and academic achievement. The study focuses on the following research questions: (1) Are there differences in the between-school variation in school SES composition, academic self-concept and reading literacy across the Nordic and selected Chinese education systems? (2) What are the sizes of peer SES and BFLPE in the Nordic and Chinese education systems? and (3) Are there any differences that can be observed between the 2000 and 2018 data for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in the first two questions for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and Hong Kong? Methods: Using PISA 2000 and 2018 data from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong and Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang (in 2018 only), a multiple-group two-level structural equation modelling was applied to estimate the school contextual effect. Results: The current study indicated that school academic and socioeconomic segregation intensified over the two decades in most of the studied countries. This finding lays the groundwork for understanding the two schools' contextual effects. School SES compositions positively affected students' academic achievement, while average school achievement negatively affected students' academic self-concept. Given that students' academic and socioeconomic composition has become more homogeneous within schools, the contextual effects were more pronounced. However, variations across diverse education systems were also notable. Conclusions

As with the rest of the world, schools in Hong Kong have undergone a series of educational reforms to raise accountability and quality assurance of education. Schools need to enhance their capability of problem-solving and decision-making for meeting this standard for sustainable development. Intellectual Capital (IC), as an intangible knowledge asset of school organisations, has excellent potential to promote sustainable school improvement. School leaders, teachers, and other staff members ought to realise the value of their knowledge and manage these intangible resources for effective production and application of IC since knowledge management (KM) is the critical strategy for schools to create knowledge assets for the development of IC. This chapter reports a case study of two Hong Kong secondary schools to reveal how school principals can practice KM to generate and apply IC to improve educational performance. Copyright © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Eric C. K. Cheng; individual chapters, the contributors.

Purpose:This article presents a definition and rationale for evidence-based reform in education, and a discussion of the current state of evidence-based research, focusing on China, the U.S., and the UK.Design/Approach/Methods:The article contrasts the state of educational research in the U.S., the UK, and China, world leaders in evidence-based reform.Findings:The article suggests ways in which Chinese, U.S., UK, and other scholars might improve the worldwide quality of evidence-based reform in education. One indicator of this partnership is an agreement among the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Nanjing Normal University, and Johns Hopkins University to work together on Chinese and English versions of the website Best Evidence in Brief and a collaboration between Johns Hopkins and the ECNU Review of Education at East China Normal University.Originality/Value:This article is the first to compare developments in evidence-based reform in education in China with parallel developments in the U.S. and UK Building understanding of current evidence-based policies should help all countries learn how evidence can play a greater role in education policy and benefit many students. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

In response to the needs for kindergarten principals to foster teachers' capacities and commitment, this study examined the relationships between professional learning communities, principal leadership practices, and teacher commitment to kindergartens among 2106 teachers from 153 Hong Kong kindergartens, analyzing by using multilevel structural equation modeling. The result showed that principal leadership practices facilitated the development of professional learning communities at school and teacher levels, and exerted a direct effect on teacher commitment at the teacher level. However, the mediating effects of different professional-learning-community components were found distinctive. Implications for leading kindergartens in the reform time are discussed. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s).