New Paradigm for Re-engineering Education

In response to the challenges of globalization and local development, educational reforms are inevitably becoming one of the major trends in the Asia-Pacific Region or other parts of the world. Based on the most recent research and international observations, this book aims to present a new paradigm including various new concepts, frameworks and theories for reengineering education.

This book has 21 chapters in three sections. Section I "New Paradigm of Educational Reform" containing eight chapters, illustrates the new paradigm and frameworks of reengineering education, fostering human development and analysing reform policies and also discusses the trends and challenges of educational reforms in the Asia-Pacific Region.

Section II "New Paradigm of Educational Leadership" with five chapters aims to elaborate how the nature, role and practice of school leadership can be transformed towards a new paradigm and respond to the three waves of education reforms.

Section III "Reengineering School Management for Effectiveness" with eight chapters aims to provide various practical frameworks for reengineering school management processes and implementing changes in school practices.

From the reviews:

Testimonial 1 by Prof. Dale Mann (USA)

There is no one better positioned in the world to comment on the future of school reform than Professor Y.C. Cheng. His scholarly base in Hong Kong and China, his access to all the major school reforms literally in the world and the wide ranging quality of his analysis make this a must-read book for anyone concerned about doing better at school reform than we have managed in the last century.

Practitioners and pundits have always known that pedagogy is not enough to reform schools and neither is love of children. If that were the case, the world would be filled with quality schooling. But it is not. Dr. Cheng borrows from economics, politics, social and anthropology, information technology and leadership theories to create an ambitious and compelling case for new ways to do the work of school reform. (December 2005)

Dale Mann, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, New York &

Managing Director, Interactive, Inc., Huntington, New York

Testimonial 2 by Prof. Brian Caldwell (Australia)

This is one of the most remarkable books to be published in the field of education in recent times. It spans more domains of educational research than a single text ever attempts, including leadership, policy, change, reform, learning, parents, futures, governance, effectiveness and more. The chapters are of two kinds, either conceptual or research. For the former, such as the presentation of the tri-level view of change in education (triplisation), we have a demonstration of arguably the educational world’s leading exponent of conceptualisation and model construction. In the research chapters, the reader has a compendium of his own studies, frequently in association with his graduate students. This is a breathtaking display of writing that links concepts and theories fromdifferent scholars of schools of thought, as well as his own research, to significant issues in policy and practice. (January 2006)

Brian J. Caldwell

Associate Director-Global, International Networking for Educational Transformation

Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne

Former Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne

Professor Yin Cheong CHENG is the President of the Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA). He is also the head of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Education Leadership and School Quality of the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

He has published internationally 14 academic books and 190 book chapters and academic journal articles on education effectiveness, paradigm shift in education, and management reform. Among his books, School Effectiveness and School-based Management: A Mechanism for School Development has been published in four language editions. Some of his publications have been translated into Chinese, Hebrew, Korean, Spanish, Czech, and Thailand languages. He was the chief editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education and Development six years and is at present serving on the advisory boards of 9 international journals.

Prof. Cheng’s research has won him a number of international awards and recognition including the Awards for Excellence from the Literati Club in UK in 1994, 1996-98, 2001 and 2004. In recent few years, Prof. Cheng has been invited to give over 30 keynote/plenary speeches by national and international organizations such as APEC, UNESCO, UNICEF, ICER, ICSEI (Australia, Hong Kong and Canada), International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), Ford Foundation (US, Africa), etc.