Education reforms and bureaucratic manipulation in post-colonial Hong Kong

This chapter reviews the context and features of bureaucracy during the colonial period from 1842 to 1997. It examines whether the bureaucracy under the administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government has continued the colonial practices substantially, or made an adaption in face of the changing political and socio-economic contexts. The chapter discusses that the bureaucratic system founded by the British, with the aim to dominate the process and outcome of the public administration and public policy, has no fundamental changes after 1997, by deploying the education reforms introduced and enforced by the HKSAR government. During the colonial rule, except for an interval due to the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945, the British experience dominated the bureaucracy of Hong Kong, shaping the beliefs, forms and manifestations of policy formulation and implementation. In the Hong Kong context, teacher professionalism is deliberately defined to be technical and instrumental.