Evaluating SAMS in Hong Kong schools

The School Administration and Management Systems (SAMS) project was launche d 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 possi ble improvement to SAMS operation. Three questionnaires were designed and s ent to the 271 primary schools and 342 secondary schools in Hong Kong which had SAMS installed, to collect opinions from principals, SAMS co-ordinator s and SAMS users respectively. The ultimate goal is to have an initial pict ure 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 se condary 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 sec ondary schools were less satisfied with the SAMS performance than their cou nterpart in primary schools. This paper discusses some of the problems of t he SAMS operations in schools and suggests areas for improvements. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.