Evaluating SAMS in Hong Kong schools

The School Administration and Management Systems (SAMS) project was launched in 1994, aiming to support all schools in Hong Kong in administrative and managerial tasks. This survey aims to investigate the changes and impacts that have been brought to schools by SAMS; to evaluate the effectiveness of SAMS in helping users perform their duties; and to identify areas of possible improvement to SAMS operation. Three questionnaires were designed and sent to the 271 primary schools and 342 secondary schools in Hong Kong which had SAMS installed, to collect opinions from principals, SAMS co-ordinators and SAMS users respectively. The ultimate goal is to have an initial picture of the SAMS exercise so as to provide a basis for suggesting solutions to improve this exercise. One-hundred and twenty primary schools and 130 secondary schools responded. The result indicates that the operation of SAMS in primary schools was affected by lack of manpower with a sufficient level of computer skills. However, it was found that SAMS co-ordinators from secondary schools were less satisfied with the SAMS performance than their counterpart in primary schools. This paper discusses some of the problems of the SAMS operations in schools and suggests areas for improvements. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.