Abstract

Until the reforms of the late 1990s, the music curriculum for Hong Kong primary schools focused largely on singing, instrumental playing and listening. Musical creativity, on the other hand, had been largely neglected. In 1997, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China announced that Hong Kong would be transformed to become a ‘knowledge-based’ society. The old school curriculum deemed to be deficient in terms of the intended policy initiatives. A reform of the education system took place with nine generic skills, in which creativity is regarded as one of the main foci, being introduced.

 

Undoubtedly influenced by a large body of research findings that support the contention that Information Technology is a powerful tool for assisting students to learn to compose music, fourteen primary schools in Hong Kong have been set up with computer-based music rooms with the financial support of the Quality Education Fund (QEF). Of these fourteen schools, twelve have focused on the application of technology on musical creativity and teachers in these schools employ various forms of information technology to promote learning through creative music activities. Some methods have proven successful while others have been less so.

 

This paper discusses the implementation of technology-based teaching of musical creativity and analiyses the teaching strategies used by the 12 QEF-supported schools. The paper concludes by proposing alternative technology-based strategies - derived from the experience of other countries - that may have the potential to increase the effectiveness of teaching for musical creativity in Hong Kong schools.