School systems in the Asian Tiger economies are sometimes viewed in the West as success stories, yet they also present their governments with concerns about quality. In Hong Kong the education policy machinery over the past decade has been faced not only with important quality issues emerging from the history and culture of the school system itself, but also with greater public accountability and the impending transition from British to Chinese sovereignty. This article charts the fate of two change management initiatives between 1990 and 1995, and examines their outcomes in the light of endemic features of Hong Kong civil service culture and Schein’s (1992) proposed characteristics of a ‘learning culture’.
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