In the recent years, the HKSAR Government has been actively launching education reform. Among others, curriculum reform is central to the various reform initiatives. Focusing on this, Education Reform: Learning and Teaching Paradigm Shift is chosen to be the theme of this issue of the Journal. It attempts to provide readers with articles covering both theoretical discussions and practical experiences for stimulating reflections and professional discourses among school practitioners and academics.

This issue of the JQSE includes two sections. The first section contains seven articles. Other than theoretical and academic papers, there are also practical experiences shared by individual schools. In the second section, two invited reports prepared by the colleagues of the Curriculum Development Institute are presented.

On curriculum integration, Professor John Lee systematically discusses and analyses related concepts, and provides future directions on implementation in Hong Kong schools. Professor Ai-lan Fu and Ming-yuan Zhang suggest concrete ways in three different aspects on enhancing teachers’ effectiveness in teaching Chinese language through Putonghua. This article will facilitate the Government, education institutes, schools and teachers to rethink about current practices in Chinese language teaching.

Dr. May May-hung Cheng and Ms Kitty Yee-ki Ching explore the possibilities of facilitating professional development of science teachers through the use of information technology as implemented in an international research project called Schools Around the World (SAW) Program. Other than this, we also have Mr. Chi-hung Cheung and Professor John Lee who report their findings of studying the influence of mastery learning on Primary Three students’ mathematics learning outcomes.

Dr. Ming-fai Hui elaborates how to make use of the school context in developing students’ creativity. Her paper reviews the contemporary definitions of creativity and differentiates between the concepts of creativity, creative thinking and creative ideas in the school context. Six different examples of school practices in fostering creativity are discussed and issues arising from these are also highlighted. We also have Ms. Suet-yee Lo shared with us her experience in launching the Social Research Project Competition for exploring the different forms of project learning at the upper secondary level. She introduces three different curriculum paradigms, followed by discussions on their application for project learning. Finally, Mr. Wai-choi Leung shares with us the effective ways of implementing gifted education in a school-based approach.

To enrich this issue, we have invited two curriculum reports on language education from the Curriculum Development Institute. The first report focuses on the major issues in the recent development of English language education and aims at helping teachers understand how quality school-based English language curriculum could be implemented. The second report provides a comprehensive view on the development and future direction of the Chinese language education in Hong Kong.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of the authors, and sincerely hope that these theoretical conceptions and valuable experiences can provide insights to the school practitioners in overcoming obstacles encountered in the current education reform.

Last but not least, the theme of Volume 4 of the JQSE is tentatively Education Reform: Support for Student Learning and Development. You are most welcome to contribute to the JQSE. With your contributions, we hope that a local knowledge base can be developed for providing quality school education to our next generation.

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