Curriculum reform and restructuring of senior secondary science education in Hong Kong: Teachers’ perceptions and implications

In response to the socioeconomic and political changes that are increasingly influenced by Mainland China and other major trading partners (see, e.g., Bray and Lee, 2001), the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has initiated a number of large-scale education and curriculum reforms since 2000 (see, e.g., Morris and Adamson, 2010). The basic aims of these reforms are to continually enhance the quality of education and to lead students toward the way for lifelong learning so that Hong Kong could truly sustain its development toward a knowledge-based society. In 2001, the Curriculum Development Council (2001, 2002) released a major curriculum document titled “Learning to Learn,” which built the cornerstone for the reform to attain a “more flexible and diversified, and student learning more enjoyable and effective” curriculum (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2005, p. 9). Subsequently, a comprehensive review of the restructuring of the academic structure and curriculum of the senior secondary (i.e., secondary 4 to 6) education in 2005 to 2007, leading to a number of new curriculum and assessment guides for all senior secondary subjects in every key learning area (see, e.g., CDC and HKEAA, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c, and 2007d), was conducted. Overall, the academic structure of the senior secondary and the tertiary level was converted from the British system of the two-year Certificate Level (CEL) at S4-5 (or Grades 10 to 11) + two-year Advanced Level (AL) at S6-7 (or Grades 1 to 13) + three-year undergraduate level to the Chinese (as practiced in both Mainland China and Taiwan), or the American system of three-year senior secondary level at S4-6 (or Grades 10 to 12) + four-year undergraduate level. The new senior secondary education reform would be geared toward the implementation of the 12-year compulsory education in Hong Kong to provide a flexible and more comprehensive/general knowledge base for all youngsters. The development marks a significant shift from that of the conventional academic curriculum for the selection of elites as adopted from the British educational system for many years. Moreover, it attempts to dilute the past practice of clear demarcation between the arts and science stream of study by introducing a new compulsory subject (CDC and HKEAA, 2007e) called Liberal Studies (in addition to existing Chinese, English, and Mathematics as the other three core subjects), which adopts an integrated approach in its curriculum design (see, e.g., Maurer, 1994; Wineburg and Grossman, 2000; Haynes, 2002). The three-year New Senior Secondary Curricula (NSSC) was set for implementation in all Hong Kong secondary schools in 2009 (Curriculum Development Council, 2009), and its introduction was expected to pose challenges to both science teachers and their students. For the new senior secondary science curricula (Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Integrated Science), nature of science, scientific inquiry, science-technology-society-environment would be put in emphases and school based assessment will be compulsory to all science subjects. Lee, Lam and Yeung (2010) had undergone a critical review of the NSS science curricula on Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Integrated Science. The changes in the curriculum and assessment might affect frontline teachers’ implementation in classroom and before its implementation; we have started to carry out this study to address the following research questions:

(a) What are the teachers’ perceptions about the NSS science curricula with regard to the understanding of the curricula, perceived emphases of the curricula, perceived level of the curricula?

(b) What are the gaps between the intended NSS science curricula and the classroom implementations with regard to the teaching emphases for the core and elective parts, progression of contents, progression from the junior to senior secondary level, strategies to deal with mixed ability and pedagogy?