Educational reforms and coping strategies under the tidal wave of marketisation : a comparative study of Hong Kong and the mainland

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Comparative Education

Publication Date

2-1-2001

Volume

37

Issue

1

First Page

21

Last Page

41

Publisher

Routledge

Abstract

It has been a global trend, since the 1980s, that the process of marketisation has been influential in the decision making of social policies around the world, and that this tidal wave is now crossing over to the Asia–Pacific region as well. Education policy, as one of the important social policies for many developing countries, has been influential in the forefront of national development in terms of manpower training, as well as in other arenas of economic and social developments. In this way, these countries are trying to improve the quality of their educational services so that they can be more competitive in order to cater for the demands in the international markets. One of the outcomes of this global trend is the international quality assurance movement in streamlining the educational institutions as well as in using different coping strategies to promote quality education for all concerned. For the Chinese mainland, it seems that the central government is adopting a policy of decentralisation in getting local governments to use multiple channels of resources and other methods to provide for their own educational services. Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, however, has adopted quite a different approach by employing the principle of managerialism in order to enhance its competitiveness in providing quality education to meet the increasing market demands. Hence, the present study is to compare and contrast the educational reforms and coping strategies that have been adopted by the socialist mainland, on the one hand, and the capitalist Hong Kong SAR, on the other hand, in order to face this new challenge of marketisation.

DOI

10.1080/03050060020020417

Print ISSN

03050068

E-ISSN

13600486

Publisher Statement

This is a revised version of the same paper presented to the 1999 Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, held on 19–23 April 1999 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Chan, D., & Mok, K.-H. (2001). Educational reforms and coping strategies under the tidal wave of marketisation: A comparative study of Hong Kong and the mainland. Comparative Education, 37(1), 21-41. doi: 10.1080/03050060020020417

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