“Preparing School Leaders: The Professional Development Needs of Newly Appointed Principlals,” by Shun-wing Ng and Sling-ying Elson Szeto, 2016, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(4), pp. 540-557, @ The Author(s).
在香港，針對新任校長提供持續專業發展機會，以因應教育改革以及全球化對學校發展衝擊，有極大的需求。為此，香港教育局已委託高等教育機構協助提供結構化的專業發展課程來滿足準校長、初任校長以及現任校長的專業發展需求。本文為質性研究，針對32位新任中學校長，探詢其對新任校長角色及其對學校領導專業發展的需求與期望，藉以改善現有的專業發展課程以滿足其需求。研究結果顯示，新任校長被期待具備人力資源管理的技能，例如授權中階主管以及管理表現不佳的職員、財務管理的實務性技能、學校管理中法律層面事務的處理技能以及課程與教學領導能力等。此外，受訪校長認為，與其他初任校長同儕的網絡關係以及校長導師工作上的引導，都能提供初任校長寶貴的經驗與協助。

In Hong Kong, there is an acute need to provide newly appointed principals with opportunities for continuous professional development so that they could face the impact of reforms and globalization on school development. The Education Bureau has commissioned the tertiary institutions to provide structured professional development courses to cater for the needs of aspiring, newly appointed and serving principals for leadership development. This paper aims to report on an exploratory qualitative study regarding the perception of 32 newly appointed principals from secondary schools on (a) their role as a new principal and (b) their needs and expectations on the school leadership development programme so that contents of existing development programmes could be improved to meet their needs. Findings demonstrated that the newly appointed principals expected to be equipped with the administrative skills of human resources management such as empowering middle leaders and handing underperforming staff; the practical technique of fi nancial management; the skills of dealing with legal matters regarding school management and the capacities of curriculum and instructional leadership. In addition, they attributed networking with peers and working with mentors as invaluable experience and support for their early years’ principalship.