Implementation dip familiar feature of reform landscape
HONG KONG HAS REACHED the 'implementation dip' in its drive to reform its education system, according to the world's leading expert on education change who heard much about the problems facing schools here during a visit last week.
Michael Fullan, who advises the governments of Britain, Canada's Ontario, South Australia and several American states, picked up the message from the many Hong Kong school leaders he worked with during three days of leadership workshops that the reforms were failing.
The reasons he was given were familiar, including an overload of government initiatives, lack of coherence between them and not enough training and support for those on the front-line.
The response of the grand strategist of education reform offered better news for Hong Kong - that this was a typical situation and things could only get better. 'This is familiar at a certain stage of the reform process,' he said. This was the implementation dip, when changes had begun but could not work smoothly because those implementing them lacked the skills and experience to do so. With no obvious beneficial outcome, they seemed to be achieving nothing more than 'hard work'.
The government had to do something to alleviate this dip and much of that involved addressing the problems teachers faced, through support and improving the working environment as necessary to motivate them, said Professor Fullan, the former dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.
'My impression is that Hong Kong is a hard-working society - from the sheer amount of work to get things done. But that does not leave much room for innovation and recouping,' he told the South China Morning Post. 'If a strategy does not motivate teachers, or does the opposite - demoralises them - there is no possibility it can work.'