Dear editor,
I am writing to express my own view on the changes of recent educational system. The use of written entrance tests has been cancelled, in response to this, primary six students who want to enter elite secondary schools are required to sit private English Language tests to identify their English standard. Moreover, the reduction in bands from five to three seems to lower the overall standard of secondary school students and it is unreliable. The reform has aroused the public concern whether it would pose a danger or benefit to the young.
The private English language tests seems to be the best way to measure the ability of applicants to use English as the medium for learning and can ensure the elite schools to admit the best applicants. However, I would like to make it clear that the test itself is meaningless. Students can acquire nothing but they may have to spend much more effort and time on preparing the test than their schoolwork performance. It appears that the private English language tests violate the prime education objective that the elimination of written entrance tests can reduce students' burden and students can therefore concentrate on their schooling and have an overall intellectual development.
It has been argued that the new banding system which is changed from five to three is apparently unfair to those extremely outstanding and academically less-able students and it is totally difficult for teachers to cope with the widened individual difference in a same classroom. To a certain extent, I believe that the outstanding may enhance to a limited extent as teachers have to look after the average or poor one; at the same time, the academically less-able may find it impossible to catch up with those have better performance because of intense competition. But, I realize that students should receive all-round quality education and both the poor and outstanding can learn from each other not only on schoolwork but also other aspects of knowledge. If you ask me what can attain standards in a class, it is full of motivated, inquisitive and creative. So I think that no matter how different quality of a class, how the banding system changed, it is not the main factor affect the overall standard.
It is believed that the canceling written language tests and the new banding system is unreliable because the studentsˇ¦ school grade varies with different schools and schools find it unable to learn much about students during the short interviews. However, I doubt if that true. First, primary schools without a set of banding system that means the overall standard of each primary school is less likely different, which implies that the school grade provided by primary schools will not have extreme variation. Second, some subjects of university are required to have an interview in order to have in-depth look at the students' own quality rather than academically performance, which shows that interview is also an ideal mean of measuring students' ability. Actually, the young in Hong Kong are under great pressure to succeed academically, in order to help students release pressure and enable them to acquire wide aspects of understanding and enjoy schooling, we should not over stress the academically. Nevertheless, schoolwork actually reflects student own capability and it is highly reliable, on the contrary, examinations cannot surely determine students' real standard. But the use of private English language tests fails to do so.
In short, the reform would not pose a danger to the young because it is the start of changing the old fashioned and inefficient examination-based educational system into an efficient and effective system, which would bring benefits to our young generation and enable them the have an all-round development.
Agnes
