課程的「軟」和「硬」政策實施：教師層面的理解The Implementation of “Soft” and “Hard” Policy on the School Curriculum: Teachers’ Perspectives

Abstract

「硬」政策是以法令為根據，具有法律約束力的實施政策，「軟」政策則源於國際法律和有關歐洲工會的政治分析，它沒有法令的約束力或硬性的規條，主要是經由遊說、溝通、指引、資源分享、會議等等的方式，吸引實施者採納有關的政策。由於現代社會的不斷改變，「硬」政策在推行時有很大的局限，而「軟」政策就填補了這空間，為政府的決策帶來了不同的施政效果。本文就以香港課程改革為例，從教師的層面與角度探討課程的「軟」和「硬」政策實施。自2000年的課程改革以來，香港政府採納了「軟」政策來推行新課程，以實質可觀的資源，提供各種人力、物力讓學校採用，期望協助學校實施各種校本革新。表面上，「軟」政策應該受到教師的歡迎，但事實上，教師對「軟」政策所提供的支援並不樂觀，他們所理解的「軟」政策，其實和「硬」政策只是一線之差而已。 The use of legal structures to force compliance has been termed as ‘Hard’ policy. ‘Soft’ policy is derived from international law and has been used to analyze the European Union policies. ‘Soft’ policy is non-binding in character. It attracts actors’ adoption of newly installed policies through persuasions, communications, guidelines, sharing of resources, meetings, etc. As contemporary society changes, ‘hard’ policy has its limitation in the implementation of new policies. ‘Soft’ policy fills this gap and brings along a different perspective for implementation. By using the example of the current curriculum reform in Hong Kong, this paper aimed to explore the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ policy implementation through teachers’ perspectives. Since 2000, ‘soft’ policy has been used by the Hong Kong Government through the provision of resources and manpower to assist the innovations implemented in local schools. It seemed that these ‘soft’ methods should be welcomed by the local school teachers. However, teachers were pessimistic about the current policy implementation. In general, teachers perceived that they had no choice but to implement the stated government reforms in their schools. In the end, they felt that ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ policy did not differ much.

Keywords

• 課程政策
• 課程實施
• 教師層面
• curriculum policy
• curriculum implementation
• teachers’ perspectives