Administrative roles of primary school teachers

The success of a school depends to a very great degree on the understanding of their roles by the school teachers as it is through them that school policies become actual practice. The move of an educational system from an elitist to a more general and compulsory one in the 1970s and wider socio-economic and socio-political changes in the last two decades have shaped the overall administrative pattern of primary schools in Hong Kong. It also denotes a demand for changing roles of teachers. As a result, a study on role identification of teachers is useful in both school administration and teacher education. Utilizing the models of Taylor and others, as well as using a sample of experienced primary school teachers attending the teachers refresher course offered by the HKIED, the symposium attempts to provide an initiate finding of a survey for the discussion of the following: 1. What administrative role-functions are the experienced teachers performing? 2. What tasks do these teachers perceive as the most important in the successful and efficient running of their subject departments/committees? 3. Are there any discrepancies between the performed roles and the perceived roles of teachers? 4. What tasks are being perceived as the most difficult to be handled? 5. Why are they difficult to handle? 6. What administratrative skills and knowledge are perceived by experienced teachers as most important to be included in an in-service training program for teachers ? Implications and recommendations for school administration and teacher education will also be discussed.