University places no longer assured

Feb 11, 2012, Excerpted from SCMP

Attending an elite secondary school will no longer be a guarantee of a university place, teachers warn.

As more pupils sit the new Diploma of Secondary Education, schools that have in the past enjoyed a university admission rate of close to 100 per cent say they expect to have to answer to parents disappointed when their children miss out.

Traditionally, only about a third of pupils continued their studies and took A-levels after the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination papers at the end of Form Five. Under the "3+3+4" system introduced in 2009, pupils will complete three years of junior secondary education and three years of senior secondary education. Those qualified to go on to university will take four years to complete standard courses.

Nancy Chan Woo Mei-hou, principal of King's College in Sai Wan, an elite government school, said it was difficult to predict how pupils would perform in the new exam or assess the strength of competition from other schools.

A study by the Federation of Education Workers which showed that pupils found subjects such as accounting, English and the new, compulsory liberal studies paper among the most difficult in mock exams. "What is also surprising is that people are telling us that even the Chinese language papers are hard," the spokesperson said.

Vocabulary

1. 3+3+4 system 三三四學制
2. admission 許可入場[入學、入會]; 承認
3. assure 確保, 保障
4. competition 競爭
5. compulsory 強制的, 必須做的; 必修的
6. Diploma of Secondary Education 香港中學文憑
7. disappoint 使失望
8. elite 精華; 精英; 優秀分子
9. Federation of Education Workers 香港教育工作者聯會(簡稱教聯)
10. guarantee 保證; 擔保
11. Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination 香港中學會考
12. mock 假的; 假裝的; 模擬的
13. predict 預言; 預料
14. qualified 具備必要條件的; 合格的; 勝任的
15. spokesperson 發言人
16. traditionally 傳說上; 傳統上; 習慣上
17. warn 警告; 告誡; 提醒