Brief critique on the design of "Accelerated schools" and its practicality in Hong Kong from both a leadership and cultural perspectives

The “Hong Kong Accelerated Schools Project” has been initiated with the support from the Quality Education Fund since 1998. Whether it could be successfully implemented might be too early to be criticized. But before evaluating its effectiveness as a borrowing concept from the west, it is necessary to investigate how far this original school design approach has been initiated in the States and what we could perceive about the new idea from both a leadership and cultural perspectives with reference to some relevant literatures. This essay briefly describes the main tenets of the American school design of “Accelerated Schools”. Then the approach is critically discussed from both a leadership and cultural perspectives to see if the approach can work in Hong Kong schools. A short conclusion is drawn to sum up the analysis. Copyright © 2001 New Horizons in Education.