Entrance Exams

Posted by Shelly

Since my co-worker’s daughter just went through Hong Kong’s high school entrance exam process, I have learned a lot about the Hong Kong education system.

Hong Kong has a British-style school system. There are 6 years of primary school followed by 5 years of secondary school. Instead of 7th grade or 8th grade, they refer to their year of school as Form 1, Form 2… At the end of Form 5 (11th grade) students have finished their compulsory education. If they want to continue, they need to take a standardized government exam. Most students take tests in 9 or 10 subjects. The test is several days long and is held every spring.

On August 8, the results were announced. A perfect score is 30 points (the total score for your top 5 highest subjects). Most subjects have a total possible score of 5 points, but English is weighed heavier with a total possible score of 8 points. If their scores are high enough, students will continue on the university track and attend an academic high school for an additional 2 years – Forms 6 and 7. At that point they will take their entrance exam for university (A levels and O levels).

Students who don’t do well on the high school entrance exam can transfer to a technical school for Forms 6 and 7. Schools announce the expected minimum test score for acceptance into their Form 6 and 7 program in advance. Hong Kong’s secondary schools are ranked into 4 tiers. Many top tier schools set their expected acceptance level at 16 points or higher.

(Nine boys and 1 girl received perfect scores this year. The girl is only 14. One university contacted the girl and offered to accept her now, without even attending Form 6 or 7. )

At 8:30 am on the morning of August 8th, the students went to their schools to get their test results. If they received a score that meets or exceeds the advertised minimum of the school they want to attend, they turned a Form 6 and 7 application into the school by 11 am. Before 1 pm, the schools had informed each student if they had been accepted. Students who were not accepted had until 2 pm to submit an application to their second choice school, which notified them by 5 pm if they were accepted. This pattern of 2 application timeslots per day will continue through Friday afternoon. The TV news will advertise how many remaining openings there are at each school.

So, if a student received 16 points and had been attending a top tier school but were not accepted by their current school because the spaces were already filled by students with higher results, then the student would have to decide if her 2nd choice school is another top tier school where they may or may not get in, or if she should drop to a B-tier school where she would have a very good chance of being accepted. Each time a student has to apply at a different school, the number of openings will have decreased. It makes for a very stressful 3 days.

200,000 students finished Form 5 this year. There is only room for 45% of them to stay on the university track. If a school had 200 students finish Form 5, they might only have space for 90 students in Form 6. From this they will offer 80 spaces to current students and save 10 spaces for outstanding students from other schools who want to transfer in.

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Students pay huge amounts of money to private tutors in order to prepare for the exams. In a recent newspaper story, teachers in the public schools were complaining that students were sitting in their classes, ignoring the lectures, and doing their homework for their private tutors.

The tutors' advertisements tend to be over-the-top. This ad, from the back of a bus, is actually very subdued, despite the fact that the guy on the right says he has "Math-e-magic Power" and the guy on the left has (or is part of, I'm not sure) "Super English Force". Something about that phrase tells me that K. Oten is better at teaching test-taking techniques than actual English.

And that's it from here, other than to add that we have "Super Blogging Force".