Improving schools in Hong Kong:
Lessons from the Past*
Paul Morris

Introduction

In the 1990s the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC) initiative was designed to change the nature of the primary school curriculum and produce pupils equipped with the knowledge, skills, language and attitudes required of a citizen of the 21st Century.  Although many of its intentions and ideas are being carried forward in the current reforms, the TOC initiative per se is now forgotten.  It has been replaced by a new wave of educational reforms.  An analysis of the history of TOC, however, provides a number of salutary lessons for educational policy making.  Some of these are set out below in the hope that they may guide today's policy-makers.

Critiquing Teachers and Schools

        The first and most problematic feature of TOC involved the tendency to locate the need and rationale for change on a critique of existing practices in schools and classrooms. The construction of policy on a foundation of criticism is both understandable (in that reforms are competing for resources within the public policy agenda) and commonplace (other reforms such as the Activity Approach and the School Management Initiative were similarly promoted). In the quest for resources, policy makers promote radical solutions that portray what is currently going on in schools in ways that are highly critical of both the curriculum and of teachers.  In the case of TOC, this was done through a negative portrayal of current practices and by contrasting them to the radically improved nature of schooling if the reform was fully implemented.  Prevailing practice was described as: fragmented and overcrowded; lacking coherence; emphasising rote memorisation and the 'linear mastery of decontextualised skills'; lacking awareness of the role of language; lacking explicit information on 'what learning progress looks like'; embodying a view that pupils are imbued with a fixed quantity of intelligence; emphasising summative assessment that focuses on decontextualised information, and over assessment.

        In effect what emerged was something akin to what Ball (1994, p.19), with reference to the UK, termed 'a discourse of derision', which demonised schools and teachers.  In Hong Kong, however, the critique was directed more at school culture and styles of teaching and learning and was thus less of a direct attack on teachers than was the case in the UK.  Whilst this portrayal of current practice might have helped gain acceptance of the reform in the public and policy arenas, it had the opposite effect in schools.  The criticisms suggested that teachers lacked appropriate professional skills, that their current practices were problematic, and that they should change their classroom behaviour.  It served a blow to those teachers who were innovative before TOC, because they felt that their efforts were not recognised.  It seemed that everyone would have to 'turn over a new leaf' before their contribution would be recognised.  The possibility that the existing system contained a number of strengths that might be built upon and that the espoused vision of the future might not be wholly achievable in practice was largely ignored.

        Teachers played a minimal role in the process of reform, suggesting that they possessed no distinctive professional expertise beyond that of any other commentator on schooling. The implicit corollary of this portrayal was that there were no existing developments or practices worthy of continuing or developing.  The logic of the reform was thus premised on a critique of teachers' lack of professionalism, but paradoxically the implementation of change was to depend on a high level of teacher professionalism.

        One problem with these stereotypes of pedagogy is that they assume that teacher-centred instruction is always ineffective and that pupil-centred interactive teaching is always effective. Research indicates that such assumptions are invalid and that there are many examples of good pedagogical practice operating in local schools that essentially involve a form of interactive whole class teaching. The research group in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Hong Kong, funded by the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR), is engaged in developing a more detailed description of the features of effective teaching of Chinese Language and English Language (Mok et al, forthcoming).  Other examples of sources of good practice can be found in the projects supported by the Curriculum Tailoring/Adaptation scheme and the Quality Education Fund (QEF).  These could provide the basis for a reform agenda that derives its vision from the strengths and realities of the local context.  There are indications that this particular lesson has been heeded, and that future curriculum initiatives will recognise and promote existing good practices.

Lack of Continuity

        The second disturbing feature in the history of recent curriculum development in Hong Kong relates to lack of continuity and development.  Reforms do not emerge from a policy vacuum nor do they enter into a vacuum within schools - they enter into a context that is replete with earlier innovations and reform initiatives.  TOC was preceded by a range of innovations promoted by different sections of the Government, including, inter alia, the Activity Approach, the School-based Curriculum Tailoring Scheme, the School Management Initiative, and Mastery Learning.  But a form of historical amnesia seemed to operate as policy documents ignored previous innovations that had been introduced to address the same problems. 

        TOC's relationship with earlier innovations was never clearly understood. Its high profile, along with the critique of existing practices, suggested that it took precedence over and was designed to replace previous initiatives. There was uncertainty and confusion as teachers attempted to understand the relationship between the plethora of seemingly unrelated reforms. A perception emerged that there was an absence of a clear long-term policy direction and a tendency to lurch from one fashionable initiative to another.  This led to innovation overload and the feeling that no single reform initiative would be supported for long enough to allow it to have an impact on classrooms.

        Currently this scenario is repeating itself, as the Government promotes its vision of a distinctive new society as if it was distinct from earlier reform initiatives such as TOC. This has been primarily achieved by ignoring all references to earlier initiatives in policy pronouncements. The resulting perception of the public and of teachers is that not only the implementation of TOC, but the ideas embedded in it, have been abandoned, whereas in reality there are strong elements of continuity between TOC and features of the new reform proposals.

        The impression that is given in the current reform statements is that policy makers have decided to begin the process of reform with a clean sheet uncluttered by the realities of the past or present.  Teachers who had improved their teaching by adapting an aspect of a previous innovation, such as TOC, are now effectively being told that their efforts have been wasted.  The perceived absence of any continuity between the 1999 reform exercise and previous initiatives serves to demoralise innovative teachers and schools.

Reliance on Rhetoric

        A third worrying feature, which characterised the initial phase of TOC, involved reliance on a combination of what Smith and Keith (1971, p.10) termed the 'alternative of grandeur'-a tendency to focus on the worthwhile intentions of reform and on the use of high-sounding rhetoric.  As Tyack and Cuban (1995, p.132) observed:

        '...the dream of a golden age in the future has often been a central theme in utopian designs to reinvent education in the present.'

        Policy makers and early in-service courses on TOC stressed its vision and aims.  Teachers meanwhile were asking for practical and operational details - what did classroom tasks look like? How did this all link to the existing subject-based curricula? How would pupils be assessed? Policy makers were initially unable to respond to these concerns.  Arguments employed to justify the lack of attention to practical issues stressed a combination of the need for school-based curriculum development and the need for greater teacher professionalism. Thus, initially, it was left to schools and teachers to devise appropriate resources and assessment instruments to support TOC. 

        The use of a generalised and rhetorical discourse has, to date, similarly characterised the current review of the education system. Thus, while TOC employed terms such as 'ever improving capabilities' and 'improving the quality of learning', the 1999 review has coined terms such as 'to enjoy learning', 'lifelong learning' and 'knowledge society'.  There is much public concern about current practices and support for the pursuit of goals such as school improvement, enhanced effectiveness and lifelong learning. However, these goals have no direct connection with any specific set of concrete policy actions, and it is the actions which will bring out the competing conceptions of what people expect of schools, what they want to keep and what they want to change.  There is a danger, as with TOC, that a general climate supportive of the rhetoric of school improvement is taken as a mandate for a specific set of policy actions, and that public consultation is limited to a combination of critique (about the present) and rhetoric (about the future).

Lack of Coherence

        The fourth disturbing feature of the TOC experience relates to questions of policy coherence and commitment.  In the initial phase of TOC various subgroups at different levels of Government conceived of the reform in very different ways, and some went about subverting it directly or indirectly.  As the reform moved from policy intention to policy action, so it met with reinterpretation, resistance and distortion within the state bureaucracy. Teachers who attended Government seminars and courses on TOC regularly reported that they received very different, often contradictory and sometimes negative messages about it from Education Department personnel.  Education Department groups, whose careers and status in the bureaucracy were linked to other innovations, such as the Activity Approach, Mastery Learning, Curriculum Integration, various new subject syllabuses and the School Management Initiative, were anxious to defend their territories against incursion by TOC.  This reinforced the scepticism and procrastination that characterised many schools' and teachers' attitudes.

        Previous experience also indicated to schools that any Government reform would soon be replaced by another apparently unlinked initiative.  The impending transfer of political sovereignty seemed to underline the transitory nature of TOC, since teachers accurately anticipated its demise after the handover in 1997. 

       At present, it is too early to anticipate whether a similar problem will occur with the 1999 reform as it has not yet moved into specifying policy actions or an implementation schedule. The potential for greater coherence and long-term commitment by the current Government is potentially greater with the departure of the colonial power, but this could quickly be lost in the battle for popularity and for determining policy priorities and actions between the executive, the legislature and the bureaucracy.

Pedagogy and Assessment

        The fifth feature relates to the need to take the effects of assessment into account in any reform.  Assessment, for many teachers, serves as the foundation of what they do in the classroom, since it provides both the external target for which they and pupils jointly prepare and the basis on which their effectiveness will be judged.

        Examinations in Hong Kong have traditionally aimed at ensuring the fairness and objectivity of the selective process.  There has been less concern for their effects on the process of teaching and learning in the classroom.  TOC called for formative assessment linked to promoting good teaching and learning.  This proved difficult to bring about in schools, however, because of the continued importance of the unreformed external assessments focused on selection.

        Despite the emphasis of TOC on pedagogy and learning, little or no change took place in classroom practices in the majority of upper Primary classrooms, since teachers continued to teach towards the unreformed Secondary School Placement Assessment examinations in P5 and P6.  In lower Primary, however, where the demands of the upper Primary examinations were not felt so strongly, teachers soon showed that they were willing to change their pedagogy, if they could see that their pupils were learning more effectively and if they could retain control of the class.  Willingness to innovate in the classroom occurred best where teachers were given the opportunity to share and experience practical alternatives with colleagues.  Much good work emerged at this level.  The resources and teacher training provided by the Government to support TOC contributed to this.

Conclusion

        Is it possible to improve the quality of learning and move schools closer to achieving the laudable aims of education that have been regularly identified? 

        Research in Hong Kong and elsewhere indicates that there is both an optimistic and a pessimistic answer to this question. 

        The optimistic answer emerges from the fact there are schools in which teachers have demonstrated a capacity to change if given support, time and encouragement.  This has happened where examinations are not seen by the teachers as inimical to the changes desired, where success has been acknowledged and built upon, collaboration encouraged, constructive feedback provided, adequate time allowed for reflection and change, and when the actions promoted allow flexibility for individual differences and emphases.

        The pessimistic answer derives from the fact that we seem to be learning rather slowly from the experiences gained in previous reform efforts.  Policy-making is still based largely on critiquing schools and teachers, rather than on building on good practices.  The current reform documents are full of rhetoric rather than practical strategies derived from sound classroom practices. As Tyack and Cuban (1995, p.133) concluded in their analysis of educational reform in the USA:

        "Rather than starting from scratch in reinventing schools, it makes most sense to us to graft thoughtful reforms onto what is healthy in the present system. Schooling is being reinvented all the time, but not necessarily in ways envisaged in macro planning. Good teachers reinvent the world every day for the children in their classes."

Notes:

*      This is based on the followign Chapters:

        Chapter 2: The Commissioning and Decommissioning of Curriculum Reforms - The Career of the Target Oriented Curriculum

        Chapter 11: Improving Schools in Hong Kong - Lessons from the Past which appeared in Changing the Curriculum: the Impact of Reform on Primary Schooling in Hong Kong published in Hong Kong University Press 2000.

References:

Ball, S.J. Education Reform: A Critical and Post-structural Approach. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1994. p.19

Clark, J. 'Conceptions of TOC.' Paper presented in a symposium on the findings and recommendations from TOC research studies, at International Conference on Teacher Education, 22-24 February 1999. Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 1999.

Clark, J., Scarino, A. and Brownell, J.A. Improving the Quality of Learning: A Framework for Target Oriented Curriculum Renewal in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Institute of Language in Education, 1994. p.14

Mok, I., Chik, P.M., Ko, P.Y., Kwan, T., Lo, M.L., Marton, F., Ng, F.P., Pang, M.F., Runesson, U. and Sze To, L.H. 'Solving the Paradox of the Chinese Learner.' in Watkins, D. and Biggs, J. (eds.). The Chinese Teacher, Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, 2000.

Morris, P. Curriculum Development in Hong Kong (Faculty of Education Papers No. 7). Second edition. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong, 1995.

Morris, P.,, Kan, F. and Morris, E. 'Education, Civic Participation and Identity: Continuity and Change in Hong Kong.' Cambridge Journal of Education 30, 2 (2000), pp. 243-62

Scott, I. 'The Disarticulation of Hong Kong's Post Handover Political System.' The China Journal 43 (2000), pp. 29-53.

Smith, L.M. and Keith, P.M. Anatomy of Educational Innovations: An Organisational Analysis of An Elementary School. New York: John Wiley, 1971. p.10

Tyack, D. and Cuban, L. Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995.  p.132-133

Professor Paul Morris is the Deputy Director (Academic) of the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

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