Hong Kong has embarked on a raft of educational reforms and prominent amongst them is a call for school students to 'learn to learn' so they can be lifelong learners. Such a reform direction is common in many countries as the demands of knowledge economies become increasingly clear and politicized. However, the extent to which such a goal is achievable depends significantly on the nature of the school and classroom learning environments in which students and teachers participate. This paper argues that many of the conditions necessary for developing metacognition, an essential requirement for 'learning to learn' and lifelong learning, are still lacking in relation to the context of science education in Hong Kong. It suggests reform directions that, if implemented, would positively impact on school and classroom learning environments and increase the possibilty that 'learning to learn' and lifelong learning might rise above the rhetoric of reform in Hong Kong.

Teachers from three secondary schools together with the authors initiated a project to develop teaching strategies and resources to implement a new Hong Kong Junior Secondary Science Curriculum (JSSC) introduced in 2000. The teachers met regularly to share their experiences of the teaching designs and classroom practice. Through working together, teachers became mentors and learners of the other teachers. Data were collected from records of teacher meetings, lesson observations, teacher interviews and student interviews to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. Findings of this study revealed that teaching approaches of these teachers changed significantly, particularly towards more student-centred modes of learning. Active student participation encouraged the teachers to explore and try out innovative ways of learning and teaching of science. The positive feedbacks from students stimulated the teachers to reflect their role as facilitators and curriculum decision-makers rather than passive transmitters of the curriculum. To be successful in making changes in the teaching culture, findings indicated that the teachers shared the common goal of delivering quality science education. The change had also to be taken place in a context in which high quality teaching resources developed by the teachers had an impact on pupils' learning. The change was not only on the pedagogical content knowledge applied in classes. It was also a change in the belief in science education. However without the characteristics of a competent teacher such as good science background and good presentation skills, such changes would not be able to succeed.

Bioethics is defined in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics as'The systematic study of human conduct in the area of the life sciences and health care, insofar as this conduct is examined in the light of moral values and principles" (Reich, 1978). The term bioethics is almost synonymous with biomedical ethics (Beauchamp & Childress, 1989). Brody & Engelhardt (1987) point out: 'because we are all either prospective patients or family members of prospective patients, the bioethical issues raised by contemporary health care are unavoidable.' Therefore, bioethical issues are inevitably confronted by everyone sooner or later. In the classrooms, bioethical issues arc likely to be increasingly in the spotlight in coming years (Simpson, 1996), and there are several justifiable reasons for placing bioethical issues in the curriculum (O'Brien, 1996). Many modern advances in science and technology have social implications. Notably among them are bioethical issues, such as human fertility controls, sex pre-determination, birth controls, abortion, AIDS & sexually transmitted diseases, homosexuality, euthanasia, genetic manipulations, animal experimentation, and environmental protection. Attitudes towards these bioethical issues not only affect the welfare of the present generations, but also have serious social repercussions extending to the future generations. The Hong Kong Government have urged schools to help students develop moral qualities so that they would become ethical and responsible citizens. Such an aim of education as to build up moral and ethical character has been strongly advocated since 2500 years ago by Confucius, and recently notably by Johann Friedrich Herbart (Gangel & Benson, 1983). Therefore it is of great importance to see whether our Hong Kong college students have conscientious judgment in these bioethical issues. The present study intends to investigate (i) the concepts of ethics and bioethics, (ii) the attitudes & rationales towards various bioethical issues

Home economics has been a school subject in Hong Kong for over fifty years. It stayed mainly as a female subject until 1999 when a survey on Equal Opportunity in Education was carried out by the Hong Kong Equal Opportunities Commission. The report of that survey revealed that boys were generally deprived of the opportunity in learning home economics in the curriculum. Schools were alert to the situation and home economics has subsequently been offered to both boys and girls in a co-educational environment in most schools in recent years. However, the participation of boys in home economics has caused some concerns in the field. Teachers are particularly anxious of their interaction with boys in a once female-dominated learning environment. Despite they understand that gender bias can be a serious detriment to learning, many are aware that they lack the ability to foster a more equitable teacher-student interaction in the classroom in order to meet the learning needs of both genders. Studies which looked at teacher interactions with boys and girls in different subject areas are abundant, such as Mathematics and Science. However, published studies on interaction in home economics classes are rare particularly in Hong Kong context. This may due to the fact that its history in co-educational learning environment is still short in Hong Kong. This study is a pioneer work which aims to find out whether home economics in Hong Kong co-educational classes supports patriarchal patterns of domination by males as researched in many studies. It also examines whether classroom processes in home economics lessons sustain or break down barriers between the sexes. It is hoped that useful strategies can be generated from this study to help all students participate equally in the classrooms in general, and within home economics lessons in particular.

General Studies (GS), implemented in Hong Kong primary schools in 1994, integrates the three subjects of Science, Health Education and Social Studies. The integration of primary subjects makes a sharp contrast with the situation in the past when teachers were teaching separate subjects. As a result, many teachers previously without science background may have been drafted in to teach the domain of science and technology of GS. The most severe obstacle to the improvement of science in primary schools in the UK found by inspectors is that "many existing teachers lack a working knowledge of elementary science appropriate to the children of his age" (cited in Harlen et al., 1995, p.4). There have been a number of researches studying the teaching of science and technology in primary schools but very few are conducted in Hong Kong where GS is implemented without precedent. Further to the paper entitled 'Primary teachers' confidence in teaching science and technology' on the quantitative findings presented at the International Conference on Teacher Education 1999, this paper reports the result of the qualitative part of a research project on primary teachers' self-perceived confidence in teaching different subjects and in teaching the area of 'science and technology' of the GS curriculum. Five teachers were invited for interviews to probe their background and the confidence in teaching the areas of science and technology of the GS curriculum. The study has identified the factors affecting teachers' confidence in primary science and technology in Hong Kong and identified the effects due to low confidence on teachers' practice. In addition, teachers' pinions about the existing GS curriculum were gathered.

The Hong Kong Institute of Education is offering a Three-year Full-time Certificate in Education Course (Primary Education) and an In-service Course of Training for Teachers in Primary Schools. Because the latter course has a fewer course hours than the former course, there is a notion in the Institute of lengthening the latter course in order to upgrade it into a Certificate in Primary Education (Part-time) Course. The author is interested to compare the Final-year trainees in these two courses on their Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Science Teaching, hoping that it would activate the comparative studies on some other aspects of these two courses to see if the findings would support the above-mentioned notion to upgrade the latter course. An instrument HKSTEBI was generated to measure the construct of Science teaching efficacy beliefs. It was found that there is no significant difference between the two cohorts of trainees in the above-mentioned course.