SED on assessments in schools

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Education, Mr Kevin Yeung, at a media session after attending a radio programme today (November 3):

Reporter: Singapore and Malaysia scrapped the examinations for children in the lower forms, for primary school students and, for Singapore, even for secondary schools. Do you think Hong Kong should follow suit and do you think that could be applied to Hong Kong?
 
Secretary for Education: As I said, there is only TSA (Territory-wide System Assessment) in Primary 3, which is being done on a sampling basis, and there is another TSA in Primary 6. In alternate years, there is a Pre-S1 (Pre-Secondary One Hong Kong Attainment Test), which is in Secondary 1. There are no other examinations organised by the Government. But we know that at schools, there are different forms of assessments. Some may take the form of tests or examinations. We have made it very clear to the schools that any form of assessment is for the purpose of helping the students to understand their strengths and weaknesses and as a result to learn, rather than to assess the students themselves. So that will be our main or basic principle. We will be continuing to discuss with schools on how to improve the assessment methods.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)