(......Continued)
	The School of Early Childhood Education organised principal training programmes for local kindergarten principals and childcare supervisors.

Reaching Out to the Community
Our activities would not add much value if we worked in isolation. Aware that we form an intrinsic part of our community, we remain actively involved in developments around us, working in close partnership with the community.

With a grant of $3.1 million received from the Quality Education Fund, our Centre for Citizenship Education conducted a 2-year project to enhance the teaching of citizenship in junior secondary schools. This project was completed in the 2003-04 academic year. It involved ten secondary partner schools in exploring a wide range of areas such as life education, service contributions, community studies, media education and religious education. The project also looked into various school-based approaches to curriculum design and culminated in the publication of Citizenship Education in Secondary Schools : Diversified School-based Practices, which contributes to the advancement of our knowledge of school-based civic education.

We have also been increasingly active in providing training for educational managers. A middle management training programme was organised for Catholic Diocesan Schools in the primary sector covering subjects such as the function and role of middle management in school reform, legal and regulatory requirements related to education resource management, school-based development, self-evaluation and external review. Offered by our Department of Educational Policy and Administration, this was a pioneering programme in an area that is seen as increasingly important for the successful implementation of school reform in Hong Kong. Since its launch, the Department has received requests from various school organising bodies to offer similar programmes.

The School of Early Childhood Education has been commissioned by the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) to run principal training programmes for local kindergarten principals and child care supervisors. It was also invited by the Association of Directors of Early Childhood Teacher Training Institutes in China to run training courses for leaders of early childhood teacher training colleges in China in November 2003, to acquaint them with new approaches and international developments in early childhood teacher education.

After highly positive evaluations of their 2002-03 Curriculum Leadership Training Programmes, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction was invited by EMB to offer further training in 2003-04. By June 2004, the Department had enabled nearly 400 Primary School Master / Mistress (Curriculum Development) post holders to manage curriculum change in a strategic manner, undertake school based evaluation and support staff through school focused curriculum renewal activities and action research projects.