Principals training programme: A comparative perspective

Recently, the professional development and training of principals has become a hot issue in Hong Kong. The idea of enhancing the professional quality of principals is officially raised by the Education Commission in its Report no. 7, followed by a government consultation paper on a proposed principals training programme. It is mentioned in the consultation paper that the draft programme is proposed after some visits to Australia, the USA, the UK and Singapore and a study of their prinicpals development programmes. The impact of the introduction of a principals training programme is great. It affects more than 1,200 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong and twice or thrice the number in terms of serving and potential principals, not to mention the other stakeholders namely teachers, parents and students. There are also related controversial issues ranging from educational theory to practice. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it is to introduce in greater details the various principals training programmes of the countries mentioned in the consultation paper. On top of them, training programmes in China and some other countries are also included to give an overall picture of representative principal training programmes. It is hope that this will widen our scope in the philosophy and practice behind a principals' training programme. Secondly, the paper also reports the findings of a survey conducted after the publication of the consultation paper. The survey was conducted in terms of questionnaires and the subjects of the survey were more than 750 serving and aspiring principals in over 230 local primary and secondary schools. Results of the survey will be discussed and recommendations will be made.