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Road user charging has long been advocated as a means of dealing with congestion in urban areas. Numerous schemes have been proposed but have advanced little beyond the drawing board. This paper draws on the experiences of two such road user charging schemes, namely Electronic Road Pricing in Hong Kong, China, and Congestion Metering in the city of Cambridge, UK, and it seeks to make comparisons with the way implementation of congestion charging in Central London, UK, has been undertaken. What lessons can be learnt from the three examples that would aid authorities considering such a course of action? Certain issues have contributed to the two schemes not being implemented, such as the level of congestion not being severe enough, the clarity of objectives, invasion of road user’s privacy, and timing and presentation. The paper seeks to compare and contrast the issues resulting in the schemes not being implemented with those of the successfully implemented scheme. The conclusion is that it is not possible to attribute the successful implementation of congestion charging to one issue alone. The role of a policy champion, public support given the severity of congestion, a single implementing agency, an understanding of the scheme’s objectives, and timing and clear presentation have all been important factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the changing concepts of leadership in early childhood education (ECE) in England and Hong Kong during a period of significant education reform. We seek to illustrate the interplay between the impact of the policy agenda and the emerging quality leadership perspectives found in the theoretical literature, by first considering the recent education reform context in both England and Hong Kong, before examining the importance of leadership for quality provision given the constraints and drivers of policy expectation. The paper explores transformational, distributed and authentic models of leadership in the ‘New Leadership’ paradigm and uses these constructions to examine the developing problems and opportunities for quality leadership as expected by the current policy reform agenda and understood by the practitioners. In conclusion, we raise questions about the interplay between policy agendas and the development of theoretical models of leadership for ECE in England and Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a growing awareness of the importance of early childhood education, the governments of Hong Kong and England have both increased investment through providing fee assistance to parents for buying services and providing funding to providers for offering 'free' places, respectively. Alongside the increased funding of early childhood education, a heightened interest in the quality of early years settings has arisen. This paper aims to develop a framework for comparative studies by addressing the similarities and differences in quality improvement of both systems. Three key issues are discussed: relevance of the quality criteria for assessment, interpretations of the quality improvement mechanism and its use in guiding practice, and the influence of contextual factors in terms of stakeholders' views of the quality process. It is argued that these key issues are fundamental to a framework for understanding different sociocultural contexts and dynamics in shaping the quality improvement of early childhood education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, the new Companies Act 2006 has replaced the common law derivative action with a new statutory derivative action but does not allow multiple derivative actions. In Hong Kong, a new statutory derivative action has also been introduced, but the common law derivative action is preserved. As in England, multiple derivative actions are also not provided for by statute in Hong Kong. This paper examines whether it was right to abolish the common law derivative action in England and whether such action should be abolished in Hong Kong. It further considers whether multiple derivative actions should be provided for in both jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article provides two 'portraits' of headteachers in primary schools in England and Hong Kong, derived from semi-structured interviews with these individuals. Contrary to some claims that such a small sample is worthless, this article argues that what is most meaningful is sometimes derived from the singular and unique; that generalisations in education are as likely to be useful if they are 'fuzzy' generalisations as if they are from scientific or statistical generalisations; and that the individual case can strip away the clutter of large contexts and allow recognition of a common shared humanity. What these portraits also show is that responses to larger contexts are heavily dependent on personality and local context, and that if policy implementation and professional development are to have impact, then an attention to the personal and the local are going to be critical factors in any success in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]