Behind the starting line: Building capacity in early childhood education

Recent studies of school development from the West point to the importance of leadership for capacity building for change. This Western discourse has attracted increased attention in East Asia countries where educational reform has been underway. This paper describes the phenomena of capacity building in Hong Kong early childhood education at a time when there was a quest for quality educare. A local preschool was selected for the study, which took part in a university-school support programme under which consultancy was hired from higher education institutes to provide school-based support. A qualitative case study approach was chosen in research design. Practice for building capacity was examined over a year in the case study school. Method of data collection included field notes and interviewing. The findings indicated that restructuring and reculturing the school as a professional learning community was occurred, with the support of the school consultants. A potential shift of moving towards interdependence and collaboration among teachers was also evident in the change process.