fong 2012 implementing the senco system in hong kong

7/23/2019 Fong 2012 Implementing the SENCo System in Hong Kong

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Implementing the SENCo system in Hong Kong:

an initial investigation bjsp_539 94..101

Kim Fong Poon-McBrayer

Monitoring mechanisms of support services for stu-

dents with special needs can be broadly classified

as external and internal. Resembling the UK model,

Hong Kong has adopted an internal mechanism

through the establishment of the SENCo post.

This investigation, written by Dr Kim Fong Poon-

McBrayer, of the Hong Kong Institute of Education,

explores how SENCos understand the policy inten-

tion of their roles, what the role entails in practice,

and what work conditions are usual for participants.

This qualitative study involved semi-structured

interviews to probe SENCos experiences. Findings

reveal that SENCos assume management but not

leadership roles in special educational needs provi-

sion. Policy deviation, and the prevalent autocratic

leadership style across schools in Hong Kong, are

the key contributors to conditions seen as unsatis-

factory, of overwork, of the inadequate planning of

provision, and of the need for professional and cleri-

cal support. It is concluded that policymakers can

make improvements through implementing practi-

cal training in participatory governance for head-teachers, developing a training model for SENCos,

and providing SENCos with additional personnel

resources. Further studies to gain a fuller picture of

the organisational contexts are recommended.

Key words: SENCos, inclusive education policy,

school leadership.

The effective monitoring of support services for students

with special educational needs in mainstream schools has

been central to the discourse of inclusive education because

of its close association with school outcomes and educa-tional equity. Monitoring mechanisms tend to be part of the

legislative and/or policy mandates and can be broadly clas-

sified as either external or internal. External mechanisms

involve personnel outside the schools in guiding/leading the

process and monitoring the effectiveness of provision while

internal mechanisms involve the engagement of in-school

personnel in the same roles.

The mechanism adopted in the USA is a prime example of

how an external mechanism works. This mechanism is built

into the relevant legislation, the Individuals with Disabilities

Education Act, in that individualised education programmes(IEPs) are mandated and associated procedures, and the

membership of IEP teams are clearly stated in the law. One

of these members must be a representative from each school

district who is qualified to provide or supervise the provision

of specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs of

children with disabilities, and has adequate knowledge

about the general education curriculum and the availability

of resources of the public agency (US Department of Edu-

cation, 2004). In practice, they frequently assume the case

manager role to conduct assessments, organise and lead

team meetings, brief members about assessment results,ensure compliance with relevant laws and district policies/

procedures, and provide consultations when teachers need

assistance (Council for Exceptional Children, 2000).

A distinctively different approach, which serves as a prime

example of an internal mechanism, is found in parts of the

UK, where a teacher is designated to manage support ser-

vices as a SENCo for his/her school. The SENCo post in

English schools grew out of the specialist teacher post

(Crowther, Dyson & Millward, 2001). The managing role

and the status of SENCos in English schools were estab-

lished and first formalised in 1993 (Garner, 1996). The aimwas to secure high-quality teaching and the effective use of

resources in order to achieve improved student outcomes

(TTA, 1998). This broad range of responsibilities involved

leadership and coordination. The vastly different practices

and the potential impact of this establishment have attracted

the attention of researchers and, hence, a sizable volume of

literature.

Garners (1996) investigation of SENCos experiences

found that the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice

(1994) enhanced the status of SENCos and made more

effective provision for their students, but sufficient time for

the additional administrative tasks was not allocated. A fewyears later, Crowther et al. (2001) found in a large-scale

survey that the lack of time and the absence of qualifications

and appropriate resources were the consequence of a failure

of the public finances to resource schools adequately, to

enable SENCos to undertake their role.

A decade after the establishment of the post, Cole (2005)

reiterated that many SENCos were still struggling to fulfil

their roles with little support, time, or funding. Cole

concluded that the role of the SENCo should be re-

conceptualised and remunerated as a senior managementpost

within mainstream schools. Despite having clear policies forthe role of the SENCo (DfES, 2001, 2004), schools con-

fronted, for example, with financial constraints, interpreted

bs_bs_banner

THE ROLE OF THE SENCO IN HONG KONG

2012 The Author. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8578.2012.00539.x


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the selection and role of their SENCo from one extreme to

another, with appointments to the role ranging from teaching

assistants to that of assistant headteacher, and postholders

being allocated vastly different amounts of resources

(Layton, 2005; Wedell, 2006). Nevertheless, Layton (2005)

insisted that the role could be powerful, regardless of whether

the SENCo is supported by senior management within the

school. The need to develop a high level of complexity in

terms of leadership and management within the role was

reiterated in another study two years later (Szwed, 2007).

Voices from the field have apparently reached the policy-

makers. In 2008, the UK government appropriated 10

million for SENCos (nasen, 2008) and required that

SENCos be qualified teachers and that their roles be defined

in relation to the leadership and management of the school

in the new SENCo regulations released that year (DCSF,

2008). The Governments commitment to raising the profile

of SENCos and ensuring that they receive the highest quality

professional development was amplified.

Hong Kong has adopted this school-based model of manag-

ing special educational needs services through the establish-

ment of the SENCo post. In 2008, the Hong Kong

Government conveyed in a circular to all public mainstream

and special schools the new policy of funding an additional

deputy headteacher position (Education Bureau, 2008a). In

addition to the usual duties expected of a deputy head-

teacher, the responsibility of shaping school-wide develop-

ment in inclusive education was attached to this post.

Specifically, this person assumes the SENCo role to manage

and monitor special educational needs programmes, to

facilitate the development of an inclusive climate linked toschool-based policies to meet the needs of students with

special educational needs (Education Bureau, 2008a). New

deputy headteachers are also required to go through a basic

school management training programme with a minimum of

40 contact hours to prepare them for assuming the new role.

The Hong Kong Governments intention for SENCos to play

a role in leadership as well as management was obvious.

The importance of the establishment of this role for the

development of inclusive education in Hong Kong makes it

imperative to examine its implementation status. However,

no relevant research data can be located. Therefore, this

investigation represents an initial effort to gain insight intothe current state of the SENCo establishment. As the first

part of a larger study, this initial investigation aims at

answering three research questions:

1. What is SENCos understanding of policy intention

for their roles?

2. What do SENCos do in practice and how well does it

match the policy expectations?

3. What are their work conditions within current

organisational contexts?

Inclusive education support policy and frameworkThe establishment of the SENCo post can be seen as a

natural outgrowth of inclusive education in Hong Kong.

Inclusive education as the policy for support of students with

special educational needs can be dated back to 1977 (Hong

Kong Government, 1977) although no action was taken until

two decades later (Poon-McBrayer, 2004a, 2004b). Along

with this policy, the Government recognised eight types of

special needs for the provision of support services

(Education Bureau, 2008a): specific learning difficulties,

intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, attention

deficit/hyperactivity disorder, physical disability, visual

impairment, hearing impairment, and speech and language

impairment. Policies associated with resources for support

services have been modified from time to time since the

inception of inclusive education in Hong Kong.

Current funding mode

The current funding system for special educational needs

support is embedded within the learning support grant intro-

duced in the 2008/9 school year. In its circular to schools,

the Education Bureau (2008b, 2008c) stated the aim of pro-

viding greater flexibility for schools to deploy resources, as

well as the requirement to ensure accountability and toprepare teachers for challenges arising from inclusive edu-

cation. Schools may use the grant together with other funds

or resources to employ additional teaching staff and/or

teaching assistants on a temporary basis, procure external

professional services, purchase teaching resources and/or

aids, organise learning or related activities to promote inclu-

sivity, and implement school-based teacher training. Schools

which have students diagnosed with special educational

needs by specialists (for example, educational psycholo-

gists, audiologists) or medical doctors can apply for funds

based on the number of eligible students with special

educational needs as follows: (a) a basic provision ofHK$120,000 per school per annum for the first one to six

student(s) requiring tier-3 support; (b) a grant of HK$20,000

per student per annum for the seventh and each of the other

students requiring tier-3 support; (c) a grant of HK$10,000

per annum for each student requiring tier-2 support; and (d)

a ceiling at HK$1 million per school per annum (Education

Bureau, 2008c) (100HK$ =8.11GBP, 19 March 2012).

Three-tier intervention model and student support team

As part of the requirement for receiving the learning support

grant, schools are required to cater for student diversity

through a 3-tier intervention model: (a) tier-1 support

quality teaching in the regular classroom for supportingstudents with transient or mild learning difficulties; (b) tier-2

support add-on intervention involving small group learn-

ing and pull-out programmes, for students assessed as

having persistent learning difficulties, including those with

special educational needs; and (c) tier-3 support intensive

individualised support for students with severe learning dif-

ficulties and special educational needs, such as drawing up

an individual education plan (IEP).

In addition, schools are advised to set up a student support

team (SST) or to designate an existing functional group to

plan, implement and review the support measures as a moni-toring mechanism. The SST should keep a register of

students with special educational needs to record the basic

2012 The Author. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN British Journal of Special Education Volume 39 Number 2 2012 95


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student data, learning progress, and support measures to

facilitate regular review. For students requiring tier-3

support, the SST should include in the IEPs a long-term or

annual plan with long-term education goals and post-school

options.

Accountability and professional development

For the purposes of accountability, schools are to engage

teachers and parents in identifying the needs of students

when planning for the use of the grant. A separate annual

evaluation regarding the use of support funds for students

with special educational needs must be submitted to the

Government. Another dimension of accountability can be

found in the new training requirements for teachers. To

improve teachers ability to work with special educational

needs, at least 10% of the teachers in each school that

receives the grant must complete the 30-hour basic training

course, at least three teachers per school must complete the

90-hour advanced course, at least one teacher per school

must complete the related thematic course on each of the

types of special educational needs that the school caters for,and at least one Chinese teacher and one English teacher per

school must complete the thematic course on specific learn-

ing difficulties.

Research methodology

As part of a larger study, this initial investigation adopted an

inductive qualitative method. The participants were pur-

posefully sampled. Patton (2002) suggests criterion sam-

pling to select informants as a qualitative research sampling

strategy to ensure that informants are directly involved in

building inclusive schools. Thus, the most suitable partici-

pants are likely to come from schools serving as resourceschools for other schools under the School Partnership

Scheme as they are selected for their proficient experiences

in adopting whole-school approaches to cater for student

diversity (Education Bureau, 2009). In the 2009/10 school

year, six primary and four secondary schools were desig-

nated as resource schools (Education Bureau, 2010). The

SENCos of these schools were invited to participate in this

investigation. Six SENCos agreed to participate, four from

primary schools and two from secondary schools.

The aims of the study and data to be collected from potential

participants were first explained on the telephone, followed

by delivering via e-mail the formal consent form detailingethical procedures, including their right not to participate

and to terminate interviews at any time, the non-disclosure

of their identity, and the confidential disposal of audiotapes

after data transcription. Once consent forms were received,

participants were contacted to confirm the time and location

of their choice for an interview. Semi-structured interviews

were conducted to ensure that the responses to the questions

would be abundant, in-depth and detailed (Punch, 2009). All

participants chose to be interviewed in their schools with

interviews lasting between 45 and 60 minutes.

All interviews were transcribed verbatim. The raw data usedas examples in this article were translated from Chinese to

English and moderated by two peer researchers in the field

of special needs to confirm accuracy. Attride-Stirlings

(2001) model of thematic networks was selected as the pro-

cedure to analyse data because it systematically outlines the

procedure for analysing textual materials and, in turn, helps

interpret patterns of phenomena. To ensure data credibility,

each participant was asked to approve the transcript and

amend or modify the preliminary themes based on indi-

vidual data. The preliminary themes from each participant

were then aggregated to identify patterns of experiences that

may provide insight into the current status of how this inno-

vation is functioning.

Findings

All of the six SENCo participants are qualified teachers with

teaching experience of between 10 and 26 years. Four of

them had earned Masters degrees and three of them had

completed the basic course for special education. SENCo D

was also the deputy headteacher of his school, and SENCo

C, being the guidance coordinator for two schools, was the

only one without any teaching duties. Because the patterns

of experiences were strikingly similar between SENCos ofprimary and secondary schools, data from both types of

schools were analysed as a unified set. The findings are

organised into the three broad areas to respond to the

research questions: SENCos understanding of policy inten-

tion for their roles, their actual responsibilities, and their

current work conditions. The four SENCos of primary

schools are referred to as SENCos A to D and those of

secondary schools as SENCos E and F.

Understanding of policy intention by SENCos

Examining the understanding by SENCos of the policy for

their roles sheds light on its impact on what they do. Inter-estingly, two of the SENCos had not read the Governments

policy at the time of interview, but this made no difference to

their overwhelming recognition of their role in managing

provision, leaving out any discussion of their leadership role

in developing school-based policies and inclusive culture, as

shown in these examples:

According to the government policy, I am supposed to

take a key role in the student support team, make

referrals, and liaise with all parties for meetings.

(SENCo B)

As I understand it, I need to coordinate meetingsregularly and report to the principal the progress,

monitor the identification mechanism and the use of

assessment instruments, and manage outsourced

services.

(SENCo D)

I think the government wants me to be a bridge

between teachers and students, maybe parents.

(SENCo F)

What SENCos do in practice

Participants understanding of policy intention matched theactual responsibilities in that their engagements centred on

management tasks (see Table 1). Coordinating SST meet-

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ings and serving as a bridge among stakeholders as two

common responsibilities of all participants are not surpris-

ing, as SENCos are leaders of the SSTs. Another common

responsibility across the board is to carry out an annual

evaluation of special educational needs services as part of

school annual reports to comply with Government policy.

The majority of SENCos (67%) also worked with students

with special educational needs directly and wrote up support

plans. Only two SENCos mentioned the power to delegate

duties to team members. Others worked as peers with SST

members.

Unchanged status among peers

Unlike their British counterparts, Hong Kong SENCo par-

ticipants unanimously confirmed their unchanged statusamong their peers. Apart from SENCo D who was already a

deputy headteacher before taking on SENCo duties, they

continued to be perceived as teachers with different non-

teaching duties from others. This perception is consistent

with what they do and is likely to be a side effect of their

current role. Taken together, SENCos have fulfilled the

expected coordination responsibilities but have fallen short

on leading their schools in shaping policies and culture for

more effective inclusive education as expected by the policy.

Work conditions and challenges

Four common work conditions have been identified from the

participants interviews: a lack of commensurate power orauthority, heavy workload, inadequate or little personnel

support, and ill-prepared teachers. These conditions

appeared to form the basis for challenges confronting the

participants.

Firstly, except in the case of SENCo D, no commensurate or

additional power accompanied the new role of SENCo, as

intended by the Government policy. Even though data did

not reflect that SENCo D exercised leadership in developing

school-based policies and inclusive culture, he did state that

he could do so:

In my position, I can take leadership to develop an

inclusive and caring culture for students with SEN,

facilitate professional development for other teachers,

and improve overall support practices.

Participating SENCos concurred that they could play a role

in making changes if they were members of the school

senior management. Both SENCos E and F said,at least I

will have more information about decision making and

school policy. SENCos A, B and C unanimously cited the

ability to allocate tasks and resources for special educational

needs services as major potential benefits of being members

of the school senior management. SENCo C stressed that:

SENCos must be given commensurate power to allocate

duties to teachers all teachers because we aim at

whole-school involvement in inclusive education, right?

Secondly, heavy workload was repeatedly emphasised. This

can be easily understood since responsibilities of SENCos

were additional to participants teaching and/or other duties.

Apart from SENCo C (who spent 50% of her work time),

none could give an estimate of his/her time spent on assum-ing duties as SENCos, because of many other duties they

had to perform. This was the case even for SENCo D who

was a deputy headteacher. As such, adequate planning and

discussions/consultations with other teachers regarding

student needs and setting task priorities were two common

challenges:

Its hard to know how much time I spend on SENCo

duties. It depends on whats more urgent. Sometimes

its teaching; other times administrative tasks. I do my

best.

(SENCo A)

Im trying to catch up with so many things . . . I

normally have a word or two with my colleagues about

a particular child in passing when we are on our way

to classes.

(SENCo E)

Thirdly, little or inadequate personnel support for SENCos,

except for SENCo D, to carry out their duties was noted

across the responses. SENCo D still found himself over-

loaded with teaching and many administrative tasks, despite

having four teachers aides to assist him and the SST with

various tasks. The main support for other SENCos camefrom members of the SSTs in their schools. The huge

amount of associated paperwork was repeatedly cited as the

task for which they needed support:

The paperwork eats into so much of our time. We

should spend time on working with children and the

Government needs to give resources so that we can hire

someone to help with coordination and paperwork.

(SENCo C)

Both myself and other teachers are overloaded with

paperwork. More resources to hire teachers aides tofill out forms and make contacts will be very helpful.

(SENCo F)

Table 1: Current roles and responsibilities of SENCos

(N =6)

Responsibilities of SENCos Number (%)

Meeting coordination 6 (100%)

Annual evaluation of special educational needsservices

6 (100%)

Bridging between stakeholders 6 (100%)

Establishing support plan and monitoringprogress

4 (67%)

Working directly with students with specialeducational needs

4 (67%)

Planning of all student support team tasks 4 (67%)

Coordination of professional service outsourcing 3 (50%)

Delegating duties to members of student supportteam

2 (33%)



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Fourthly, five of them expressed the view that the small

number of trained teachers to cater for student diversity in

their schools made their job more difficult as they needed to

provide support for other teachers in addition to their already

heavy workloads. This was further exacerbated by the loss of

teachers and the subsequent need to train new teachers.

Consequently, the lack of time to provide training and be

engaged in training became a norm. The simultaneous call

for more training and more time for training was loud and

clear from the participants.:

because of the heavy workload, trained teachers quit.

We need to train new and inexperienced teachers all

the time but we simply dont have the time and they

dont either.

(SENCo C)

Of all the issues we have, teacher training is most

pressing. Most of my colleagues said they dont know

how to deal with SEN. We dont have enough resources

to receive training.(SENCo E)

Lastly, despite the increased resources through the learning

support grant and other funding schemes to facilitate the

work related to inclusive education, SENCos, at the end of

their respective interviews, unanimously voiced the need for

more resources, to reduce their teaching load, to provide

clerical support, and to allow time for training, planning and

working with parents and students.

Discussion

While the experiences of the six SENCos cannot be genera-lised to all schools, they do offer a powerful initial glimpse

into the realities of the role of SENCos in some schools

already considered proficient in implementing inclusive

education. The findings reveal strikingly similar organisa-

tional contexts impacting on the functioning of the SENCos,

in which autocratic school leadership, heavy workload,

insufficient support, and inadequate resources are common

across the schools. To crystallise the analysis, the experi-

ences of British SENCos will be compared with the Hong

Kong experiences where appropriate. The following discus-

sion is organised under two broad themes: autocratic school

leadership and common challenges.

Autocratic school leadership

The establishment of the SENCo role demands the decen-

tralisation of school governance. There are two types of

decentralisation: administrative and democratic. Adminis-

trative decentralisation refers to the limited delegation of

decision-making authority to the lower organisational levels

while democratic decentralisation transfers more power and

authority to the lower organisational levels (Gamage, 1996).

Autocratic leadership is a prime characteristic of adminis-

trative decentralisation.

The prevalent leadership style as suggested by the findings isthe key distinction between Hong Kong and its British coun-

terpart. Three years into the establishment of their role,

British SENCos reported that the school senior management

increasingly saw them as key advisers on special educational

needs policy matters and their status among fellow teachers

was raised (Garner, 1996). Moreover, Garner (1996) found

that 80% of the participating SENCos were given commen-

surate power in policy formulation. It is especially intriguing

when considering the fact that the policy at that time did not

tie British SENCos to a senior post. Hong Kong SENCos,

however, did not experience such changes.

The results of this investigation indicate a significant diver-

gence in role expectations between England and Hong

Kong. In the former, inconsistent role expectation across

schools seem to be the norm (Hallett & Hallett, 2010),

whereas a consistent role expectation across schools is the

norm in Hong Kong in that over 80% of the participants

schools deviated from Government policy by not appointing

the SENCos as deputy headteachers nor engaging them in

shaping school policy. Instead, their roles were confined to

coordination tasks. This suggests the continued practice of

autocratic, single headship, commonly found in local schoolleadership studies (for example, Wong, 2003; Ho, 2008),

which still dominates Hong Kong schools (Wan, 2005). This

prevalent top-down centralised school leadership may dem-

onstrate the cultural influence in Chinese and Western man-

agement (Law, 2009) in spite of the introduction of the

Governments school-based management policy to encour-

age a participatory governance framework that involves

headteachers, teachers, parents and sometimes students in

decision making (Education Bureau, 2011). Such an initia-

tive has turned out to be restrictive in providing avenues for

improvement in schools due to the cultural context that

values replication rather than generation (Fang, 2000),reflecting a lack of adequate preparation for making a para-

digm shift (Kwan, 2011). In this organisational context,

SENCos are not expected to be partners in policy formula-

tion for shaping inclusive education and thus peer percep-

tions of the status of the SENCo remain unchanged.

Challenges within current organisational contexts

The above comparison offers insight into the organisational

contexts that have a direct bearing on SENCos roles and

challenges. Unlike their British counterparts, Hong Kong

policymakers embedded the role of the SENCo in the new

deputy headteacher post right from the beginning to

empower SENCos to be involved in what Hallett and Hallett(2010) distinguish as the strategic management role.

Without being appointed as deputy headteachers, SENCos

are not entitled to a reduced teaching load and do not have

positional power. Instead, they are overloaded with admin-

istrative and teaching duties even when they are part of the

senior management like SENCo D. The SENCos emphasis

on the immense amount of paperwork associated with their

new roles and their loud cry for workload reduction and

help from paraprofessionals clearly illustrate the inadequate

support from the school management. The widespread

policy deviation among the participants schools three years

into the establishment of the SENCo post also reflects a lackof governmental commitment to see that this initiative func-

tions as expected, to achieve effective special educational



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needs services and educational equity in Hong Kong

schools.

Implications for practice

Educational policies reflect social-political conditions

(Keogh, 1990). The role of the SENCo was introduced to

support inclusive education policies (Petersen, 2010) both in

England and Hong Kong. The gap between policy and prac-

tice is a continuing challenge (Carrington & Elkins, 2002) to

all and demonstrates a need for policymakers to take a direct

responsibility in monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness

of the SENCo to support schools in working towards the

goal of effective inclusive education via three channels:

training and coaching for participatory leadership and man-

agement, training of SENCos, and resource allocation.

Training and coaching for participatory management

Undeniably, headteachers play a significant role in building

effective schools and in successful school improvement

(Hallinger, 2003). Beginning in 2000, Hong Kong imple-

mented a policy dictating a coherent framework for theprofessional development of headteachers and programmes

associated with the framework which are run by local uni-

versities (Walker, Hallinger & Qian, 2007). Switching from

autocratic to participatory leadership requires a paradigm

shift. Walker et al. (2007) found that the use of trained and

experienced headteachers to play clearly defined roles

(such as mentoring, sharing, observing) and flexible learn-

ing structures in terms of method and content can improve

training and meet diverse needs of school leaders. Thus,

the government can strengthen current training for school

leaders to involve headteachers practising participatory

management in on-site coaching together with universitytrainers to assist peer headteachers to move toward collabo-

rative school governance. Improving the school context for

SENCos to participate as leaders in school goals and poli-

cies (Zeichner, 1991) is fundamental to the success of this

establishment.

Training of SENCos

The call for more training by practising SENCos came loud

and clear from this investigation. Vastly different practices

and interpretations of the SENCo role are still seen in

English schools (Hallett & Hallett, 2010). Increased legal

requirements and funds have contributed to the evolution of

the SENCo role and the move toward a national qualificationframework in England (OPSI, 2009). Whether the training

provided by the British tertiary institutions will produce

effective SENCos has yet to be determined, and adopting the

English framework may be inappropriate for the Hong Kong

school context, but it can certainly serve as a reference when

devising a local training model.

Some of the core training elements are significant for

SENCos in any cultural context: (a) the role of SENCos as

leaders in promoting good practice, implementing policy

and promoting staff development in their schools; and (b)

how SENCos can ensure that special educational needsissues are fully integrated into the shaping, implementing

and evaluating of school policy. Skilled and experienced

SENCo practitioners as trainers and school-based coaches

should also be key features of the training model.

Resource allocation

Insufficient support from school management, heavy work-

load, and inadequate resources are frequently noted with any

new educational initiative and are not unique to the establish-

ment of the SENCo role. Fifteen years after the establish-

ment of the SENCo roles, English policymakers specified the

leadership status of SENCos in the new 2008 regulations and

appropriated funds for training, to demonstrate their commit-

ment to enhancing the role of the SENCo in shaping and

improving special educational needs provision. Likewise,

Hong Kong policymakers should examine, as a companion to

facilitatingleadership development, the possibility of provid-

ing funds to increase paraprofessional support to maintain a

reasonable level of workload and to allow time for SENCo

training. They must also support school leaders so that ten-

sions arising from workload and resource issues can be

minimised during the evolution of SENCos roles.

Research implications

The current lack of data on Hong Kong SENCos necessi-

tates a definitive call for further studies. Findings of this

initial investigation suggest the need for an associated larger

study to examine the views of headteachers on special edu-

cational needs policies and provision and their experiences

and constraints when establishing the role of the SENCo, to

gain a full understanding of contextual factors that have

contributed to policy deviation and the current state of

operation. When focused on educational reform, it is clear

that one major responsibility of the research community is to

carry out a systematic and comprehensive study of theimplementation of change (Keogh, 1990).

Conclusion

Narrowing the gap between policy and practice is a continu-

ing challenge to all. The change of policy from confining the

practice of inclusive education to a small number of schools

(Poon-McBrayer, 1999) to widening it to all Hong Kong

schools in the last decade testifies to the impact of unstop-

pable worldwide trends in inclusive education. Resources

designated to support special educational needs provision

continue to increase as well. These developments, and the

policy of school-based management for Hong Kong schools,

have together set a foundation for building a school-basedsystem through the establishment of SENCos to intensify

school-wide engagement in inclusive education and to

facilitate policies and practices responsive to individual

organisational contexts. The potential benefits are consider-

able. If Hong Kong policymakers are committed to improv-

ing special educational needs provision through this school-

based mechanism, understanding factors contributing to

policy deviation and examining ways of developing the role

of the SENCo in Hong Kong schools should be urgent tasks.

Whether the roles of Hong Kong SENCos will be expanded

and evolved like their British counterparts is contingent

upon efforts from policymakers and school management toeliminate barriers and create a conducive environment for

their effective functioning.



7/8

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Address for correspondence:

Kim Fong Poon-McBrayer

Hong Kong Institute of Education

Department of Educational Policy and Leadership

10 Lo Ping Road

Tai Po

Hong Kong

Email: [email protected]

Article submitted: October 2011

Accepted for publication: March 2012


fong 2012 implementing the senco system in hong kong

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