粵港澳大灣區建設已上升到國家發展戰略層面。灣區教育、人才等要素的互融互通和協同發展,是實現粵港澳大灣區發展目標的基礎性條件。找準粵港澳大灣區在教育和人才合作層面的支持條件及現存問題,明確粵港澳大灣區教育和人才合作機制建設過程中錯位發展與優勢互補相統一;充分發揮市場機制的決定性作用,同時,積極發揮政府的引領作用;打造教育與人才合作創新與交流平台;完善教育、人才的激勵措施,搭建創新知識與科技成果轉化機制,有利於整合區域優勢,提升灣區整體國際競爭力,促進國際一流灣區目標的達成。

創新是引領發展的第一動力,創新的核心要素是人才。粵港澳大灣區正努力成為全球科技創新中心和世界大灣區第四極,呼喚大灣區高等教育充分發揮基礎支撐和動力引領作用。華南理工大學主動對接國家創新驅動發展戰略,深度融入粵港澳大灣區建設進程,通過構建一流創新人才培養體系,推動新工科建設、廣州國際校區建設、灣區創新生態群落建設,努力培養造就大批具有全球視野和國際競爭力的拔尖創新人才。

建設粵港澳大灣區是習近平總書記親自謀劃、親自部署和親自推動的國家戰略,高等教育領域的開放協同創新發展將是粵港澳大灣區建設題中之義。該組筆談匯聚灣區高等教育建設謀劃之思,提出如下觀點:做實深港教育合作,建立法規保障機制,成立實體協調組織機構,基於全球化、智能化要求推進灣區教育開放與合作;著眼四個方面開展灣區高等教育發展定位與戰略研究;在粵港澳大學聯盟的基礎上打造各種專業子聯盟,拓展聯盟高校合作內容,規範灣區高等學校合作模式,實施大學集群戰略;建立"粵港澳高等教育大灣區協同創新發展試驗區",組建兩大共同體,構建統籌協調、利益共享、風險防範三大機制;理工科大學需緊密對接灣區制造業發展需求,服務、支撐區域產業尤其是制造業轉型升級;構建"粵港澳大灣區高等教育樞紐",加大並優化灣區高等教育資源投入,充分整合粵港澳三地建設,提高對外開放水平,推動高等教育創新發展。

This paper builds on Whitchurch's notion of the "blended professional" which aims to examine how mixed professional activity affects professional administrators and managers' identity disposition in universities in Hong Kong. In response to complex missions and demands of contemporary higher education globally, diverse projected-oriented professional managers have emerged in universities and are dedicated to a wide range of short- and long-term funded projects. Certainly, Hong Kong is no exception. The distinction between academic and non-academic staff has become less prominent for these managers who work across and between university functions. Yet, amongst discussions, Hong Kong--even in Asian Country--has received scant attention. By drawing empirical data from three professional managers currently working in a Hong Kong university' research and development centres, this qualitative paper investigates through Whitchurch's framework, how professional activities affect their identity disposition at their workplaces in Hong Kong context.
[Copyright of Educational Research and Reviews is the property of Academic Journals.]

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between staff size and perceived organizational support (POS) in early childhood education (ECE) organizations. Design/methodology/approach–A territory-wide questionnaire survey was designed to investigate the perceptions of preschool teachers in Hong Kong on four dimensions of organizational support, namely, teacher participation in decision making, school management support, school performance in organizational support, and organizational negativity in organizational support. In total, 2,066 teachers from 189 schools were sampled with stratified random sampling. Confirmatory factor analysis and latent mean analysis were employed. Findings–There was a significant relationship between staff size and POS. Specifically, teachers working at small schools in terms of staff size reported significantly higher POS than their counterparts in medium and large schools in aspects including teacher participation in decision making, school management support, and school performance in POS. Conversely, both medium and large schools had higher scores on organizational negativity. Research limitations/implications–There may exist other factors (e.g. principal leadership), which are not investigated in this study, that influence POS. Future studies are needed to capture a fuller structural relationship among an array of factors that influence POS. Originality/value–Research on staff size and POS has been conducted separately, without one element informing the other. The findings of the present study will stimulate more research on POS and staff size. The study will stimulate thinking about whether larger preschools are more efficient than smaller preschools in terms of scale of economies in a marker driven, ECE context. Building upon the foundation laid by the study, future studies may explore the interaction between staff size and POS on intended student outcomes in ECE.
[Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Recent literature has revealed that middle leaders play an important role in school reforms. School middle leaders are the backbone of the school organization. Without their assistance, it is difficult for principals to face the challenges of the reforms and run their schools efficiently and effectively. The implementation of school-based management in Hong Kong, however, has increased the workload of middle leaders. They need to lead groups of teachers to achieve tasks assigned by principals or decided by school-based councils. There is an increasing need of their leadership in schools. A great demand for providing leadership training for middle leaders has emerged. Since 2002, a group of scholars and principals have initiated and tried out different leadership training projects for primary school middle leaders in Hong Kong. Over 500 middle leaders from about 200 primary schools have been trained. The projects can be categorized into mainly three modes of training, namely, short-term mode, long-term mode and mixed mode. Each mode has its strengths and limitations. The short-term mode (five days) delivered theories and skills in management and leadership through talks and workshops. The long-term mode (12 months) had four stages: preparation, collaborative action learning, try-out and debriefing stages. The mixed mode carried key elements of the short-term mode and the long-term mode. This article reports the initiation and implementation of these projects. The structural and conceptual frameworks of the modes will be highlighted. A comparison of the three modes in terms of aims, contents, learning modes, lengths of time, resources will be provided. Results of the evaluation of the projects will be analyzed. The effectiveness of the three modes of middle leader training will be discussed and suggestions will be made.

Western frameworks for school improvement, including the stakeholder model and the model of decentralized leadership, have recently been promoted as solutions for school improvement. Using early childhood education in Hong Kong as an illustrative case, this article focuses on the power and authority of leadership in school decision making. The interview data collected from the two case study schools reveal a paradox of power in leadership that is characterized by tensions between centralization and decentralization in the change process, where decentralization is advocated by policymakers but traditional hierarchical cultures remain. The relationship between the leaders and school stakeholders incorporates a concept of harmony that functions to defuse the potential power struggle embedded in decision making.
[Copyright of Peabody Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2012.664479]

Background: Recent government initiatives in Hong Kong have focused on raising the participation of students from South Asian backgrounds in mainstream schools, to encourage their further integration into Hong Kong's educational system and society. These students' learning in mainstream schools takes place within the context of the central curriculum and, thus, students face the challenge of learning Chinese as an additional language. Mainstream schools sometimes provide additional support, including the provision of bilingual teaching assistants to address the specific needs of the students from South Asian backgrounds.
Purpose: This exploratory study aims to investigate the roles of bilingual teaching assistants in Hong Kong.
Method: Interviews were held with two bilingual teaching assistants from the South Asian community in Hong Kong who were working in a mainstream secondary school. Teachers from the school were also interviewed. Open-ended interview questions focused on perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of bilingual teaching assistants in Chinese-language-medium classes. The data were analysed to identify any emergent patterns and themes.
Findings: The research findings indicate that the bilingual teaching assistants from the South Asian community not only took on the role of helping the learners from South Asian backgrounds in Chinese language acquisition, but also acted as cultural mediators between mainstream school culture and the culture of the South Asian community in Hong Kong.
Conclusions: This small-scale exploratory research study suggests the importance of the role of bilingual teaching assistants in promoting equal access to quality education for ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Educational Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2010.524753]