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This paper examines aspects of the school-to-work transition process for high-achieving Indigenous Fijian young women using selective data from a wider study of school-to-work transitions conducted in 2005. It appears that traditional and colonial understandings of the role of Fijian women still shape even high-achieving girls’ career and life options; these are expressed through their subject choices at school and their narrow career aspirations. While the social reproduction mechanisms of schools are evident, families and communities are also implicated. High-achieving girls still tend to emulate the career choices of older women in their families and communities, even in the current context of a marked lessening of labour market opportunities for the time-honoured ‘white-collar’ occupations of teaching, nursing and public service work. Some provisional interpretations, looking towards productive interventions at school, community and church level, of this phenomenon are offered.

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This short-term longitudinal study sought to identify the issues faced by a group of international Chinese students undertaking study in an Australian university. While the focus was on educational issues, socio-cultural and personal factors were also examined in an attempt to identify the sorts of strategies students used in settling into a new socio-cultural and educational context. Interviews conducted at the beginning and end of the first semester of study indicate a range of issues that are supported by previous studies. What has not previously been highlighted, however, is the emphasis on speaking and listening skills which students reported they needed to improve. Lack of proficiency in these areas was seen by students as hampering their active participation in class, leading to lack of confidence in approaching Australian students, and resulting in their inability to benefit from the 'Australian experience'. Many existing academic support structures in Australian universities tend to emphasize support with written and study skills. While this is important because of the direct impact on assessment, it is perhaps now opportune to place some emphasis on developing strategies and programs that will support the development of students' speaking and listening skills, with a focus on intercultural communication.

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This article discusses how the traditional Maori concept of Hauora (balanced development) can be applied to beginning teacher induction programmes. To develop this idea, several steps were taken. From a nationwide survey, five primary schools were chosen with exemplary induction programmes. Data from interviews and observations indicated that these schools had successfully integrated practices in four domains: socio-emotional, personal growth, pedagogical, and physical. During the final series of interviews, a beginning teacher suggested that effective induction could comprise the four components of the Hauora model. The traditional Maori concept of Hauora incorporates physical, spiritual, pedagogical, and socio-emotional dimensions of support. Selective coding of the data indicated that the Hauora model indeed fit the data. The result is a contextually derived, culturally relevant definition of effective induction in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Further expansion and investigation of this model may be of interest to the educational community, particularly in light of the Kaupapa Maori theory.

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This article looks at the impact of globalisation on transitional, transforming and reconstructing societies. After defining these terms, and giving examples from each category, the paper examines globalisation as a key force for change. It shows, from a comparative perspective, that there are common trends in all those societies or regions that have undergone transformation or reconstruction during the 1990s. These are identified as the breakdown of central control; moves towards decentralisation; weakening of central finance; the related growth of the private sector; a fresh approach to what is taught in the curriculum; the rejection of languages of oppression and the adoption of English as a major global language. As with all revolutions things are messy and the poor are increasingly disadvantaged. The article concludes by raising certain issues of concern.

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Understanding factors influencing international students’ decision to engage in international education is essential for education providers to better cater for students’ educational expectations and enhance their attractiveness to international students. Whilst there has been extensive research on the reasons why international students undertake cross-border higher education, international students’ motivations for enrolling in vocational education and associate degree programmes are still under-researched. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 30 international students from China, this research found that pathway to higher education appears to be the most important factor motivating international students to undertake vocational education and associate degree programmes. In addition, prospect of immigration, English language proficiency, previous academic performance, agent’s recommendations and relatives’ and friends’ advice are amongst the important factors that students take into account in their decision to choose vocational education and associate degree programmes. This research also examines why Chinese international students have chosen vocational education programmes in a dual-sector university over vocational education colleges. It found that the flexibility to articulate to higher education, international reputation of the programme, practical training and favourable location are key issues that these students draw on when making their decision to study in a dual-sector university.

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This article explores the role of the Korean government in expanding private higher education over time and attempts to examine the impact of such expansion on access to and equity in higher education. The enrolment rate in Korean higher education has increased to over 80% within the past 60 years. This can be attributed to two factors: the rapid expansion of private universities which currently enrol about 80% of undergraduates, and the Koreans' educational aspirations rooted in the cultural esteem for education. The government's role is also paramount in the expansion by deregulating private universities. However, higher education expansion, mainly led by private resources with minimal government funding, has resulted in educational inequity. The Korean case demonstrates the importance of maintaining a balanced act between regulating and promoting the expansion of private higher education for a developing economy.

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Attempting to transform the university sector to become globally competitive, many Asian governments have made serious efforts to benchmark against leading universities in Europe, North America and Australia to enhance their global competitiveness. Realizing the importance of higher education and the potential of the education market not only for generating additional national income but also for asserting 'soft power' in the highly competitive world, the governments of Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore have put serious effort in a quest for regional education hub status, while China has tried to engage overseas partners to diversify transnational higher education (TNHE) programmes catering to citizens' pressing demand for education. This article critically examines what major strategies these Asian societies have adopted to enhance their national competitiveness in an increasingly globalizing world. More importantly, a close examination of recent developments of regional education hubs in Asia in general and the rise of transnational higher education in particular would provide a wider policy context for the discussions in this special issue on 'Managing human capital in Asian cities: challenges for educational governance'. Starting with these general considerations, this article focuses on a few major societies in East Asia by critically examining major strategies that these Asian governments have adopted in the quest to become regional education hubs and the expansion of transnational higher education. The second part of the article briefly reviews the major arguments of the articles in this special issue, while the final part will critically examine major policy implications of implementing such policies and strategies in educational development in Asia.

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Recent accounts of college-level English language teaching in China describe environments that, although constrained by the College English Test (CET), are undergoing changes in a number of curriculum areas, including recognition of the need to incorporate communicative approaches and the assessment of practical language abilities. In such times, tensions between the needs and desires of society, teaching institutions, teachers and students are inevitable. In this article, we report on a study involving a group of university English teachers from across China who attended a professional development programme in Beijing in the summer of 2006. We explored the experiences of 83 teachers in their working environments, using four one-page reflective frames, which we distributed at regular intervals during the two-week programme. Teachers described tensions between the need to achieve socially-oriented and subject-centred goals, such as passing examinations and developing communicative competence (’teaching the book’), and their desire to bring about enduring personal changes in students’ awareness of themselves as learners and their approaches to learning (’educating the person’). Like colleagues in other countries and contexts, they faced ongoing challenges in trying to harmonize students’ needs, curriculum obligations, and their own theories of best practice.

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This paper investigates the relationship between educational policy, equity, and national development in Nepal. It argues that current inequities in educational opportunities and outcomes are largely attributable to persistent inequities and biases in the educational policy framework. We begin by surveying the complex, multifaceted reality of educational disparity in contemporary Nepal and trace these inequalities to exclusionary practices in the policy environment that have persisted in various forms since the inception of an independent Nepali state. We then show how these educational inequities contributed to the civil conflict that engulfed Nepal from 1996 to 2006. Analysis and critique of the most recent policy trends, decentralisation and privatisation, provide insight into the future nexus of educational policy and equity in Nepal. We conclude that it is imperative for policymakers to reconceptualise the relationship between development, education, and equity at this critical juncture.

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Human resource (HR) management is defined as the sum of activities employed by an organization to attract, develop, and retain people with the appropriate knowledge and skills for effectively and efficiently achieving organizational goals. An understanding of the HR practices in schools is important, as the assembly of a team of qualified and committed teachers, directly or indirectly, affects the quality of instruction in general and in particular in Hong Kong, where a high wastage rate of new teachers has been recorded. The literature has emphasized the importance of each HR element in school and yet not much work has been done that attempts to link the various HR elements together, even though the complementarities and interdependencies among these practices have been acknowledged. The present study aims to provide a general picture of the HR practices in schools from the perspective of beginning teachers, using a quantitative methodology. In addition, the link between these practices and the beginning teachers’ commitment was also examined. The findings confirm the complexity and diversity of HR practices in Hong Kong schools and suggest that the practices in the areas of training and development and working conditions warrant special attention as they are linked to the affective commitment of new teachers to schools.

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