Study In School-based Curriculum Development In Hong Kong

From the 1ate 1960s, schoo1--based curriculum deve1opment isgetting more and more attention in some deve1oped countries, such asBritain, United States and Australia, and becomes one of the majortrends within the fie1d of curriculum innovation in the 1970s and1980s. This kind of innovation advocates that the base of curricu1umdecision making shou1d move from the centra1 government to individua1schoo1s, giving individual schoo1s and teachers to have more autonomyand responsibi1ity in curricu1um development.In the late l980s, Hong Kong follows this trend and thegovernment begins to advocate schoo1--base curricu1um deve1oPffient inprimary and secondary schoo1. Then, a series of curriculum innovationsand reforms related to school--based curricu1um deve1oPffient areintroduced. However, school--based curriculum deve1opment first emergesin some deve1oped countries having a decentra1ized educational system.1ndividua1 schoo1s in these countries have more autonomy than those inHong Kong; teachers in these counties enjoy a stronger degree ofprofessional autonomy' than is the case in Hong Kong. Educationa1decision making in Hong Kong has 1ong adopted a high1y centralizedmode1, and educationa1 po1icies and educationa1 reforms mainly fo11owa top--down approach. Therefore, it is meaningful to examine theprocess of schoo1--based curricu1um deve1opment in Hong Kong because itwi1l provide a case which shows how a decentra1ized curricu1um reformdeve1ops in a highly centra1ized educational syStem. The main purposeof this study is to exp1ore the future deve1opment direction ofschoo1--based curriculum development in Hong Kong by reviewing thehistory of schoo1--based curriculum deve1opment in Hong Kong, byexanining the current situation of schoo1--based curricu1um developmentand the factors which affect the imp1ementation of school--basedcurricu1um deve1opment in Hong Kong.Both theoretical method and empirica1 method are adopted in thisstudy which mainly embraces two parts: 1iterature review and casestudy. Historica1 research method and comparative research method areused in 1iterature review, while c1assroom observation and in--depthinterview are chosen in case study.The resu1ts of this study show that the reason for advocatingschoo1--based curricu1um development in Hong Kong is the rapid changeof the po1itic, economy and cu1ture of the society in last two decades,causing the centra1ly--based curriculum deve1opment no 1onger tosatisfy the need of society deve1opment. Neverthe1ess, The projects inthe beginning of promoting schoo1--based curriculum development in HongKong adopt a highly centra1ized management style which causes adeviation of the nature of school--based curricu1um development. Theeffects of the imp1ementation are far from the ideas of schoo1--basedcurriculum development. The main reason is that schoo1--basedcurricu1um deve1opment is a decentralized model, haying interna1conf1icts with the highly centra1ized management style.The study reveals that there are many factors affecting theimp1ementation of school--based curriculum deve1opment, inc1uding thecapacity and the professiona1 spirit of teachers, the organizationa1structure of schools, the ranagement style of schools, schoo1 cu1ture,the form of pub1ic examination, the supporting system of theenvironment and so forth. It is c1ear that to imp1ement schoo1--basedcurriculum reforms successfu1ly requires many aspects to match.Ignoring anyone of these aspects may cause some bad effects. Therefore,to imp1ement school--based curricu1um reforms cannot adopt a piecemea1method but consider al1 aspects as a whole. Especia1ly, whenimp1ementing schoo1--based curricu1um reform, the government shou1dprovide schools and teachers a c1ear direction, adeqllate rooms andsupports.Moreover, advocating schoo1--based curricu1um deve1opment shouldnot negate the existing values of the .centra11y--based curricu1umdev...