The effectiveness of an international curriculum in providing quality education to students in Hong Kong: a casestudy

Abstract

International education is not a new concept and has been in existence for a number of decades in our society already. Lately there is an increasing number of local schools in Hong Kong that have or are considering to offer an international education curriculum to their students, such as the IB programmes, including the PYP, MYP and DP. With the Education Reform that was endorsed by the Education Commission in 2000, part of the reform was to introduce the NSS which allows students to study three years of their final secondary schooling, leading to the HKDSE as a school-leaving diploma, and also a qualification for getting into further education. With international education being first introduced and implemented in international schools around the world, how effective is it for a local school where the majority of the student population is Chinese? A local school was chosen to form as the basis for this research, of which it operates under the DSS scheme. Due to this reason, the school has the flexibility and additional funding comparing with local government and aided schools to offer an international curriculum such as the IB. As the main purpose of the research is to investigate into the effectiveness of an international curriculum in providing quality education to students in Hong Kong - a case study. The researcher has devised three key research questions to focus on in response to this purpose including, (1) What is an international curriculum and its rationale, with particular reference to the IB MYP? (2) Why would a local school in Hong Kong adopt an international education curriculum and in what ways would it provide a quality education for students of the future? (3) Can a local school deliver the key elements of an international curriculum? Having conducted detailed research and analysis, the researcher has found that it seems that it is by and large effective to implement an international education curriculum for students in Hong Kong. Findings were put into seven categories, including global mindedness, holistic learning, the curriculum, organisation’s commitment and resources, language, assessment and preparations for higher education. It appears that an international curriculum provides students a quality education, in particular it focuses on holistic learning approach. However, the researcher has found that it could be more challenging for local schools to implement an international curriculum due to some of the fundamental concepts and underlying philosophy such as how school stakeholders could become more global minded, in a setting where the majority of the student population is Chinese.