What is the problem of the Hong Kong Educational Situation?
May 30, 2009 by Barry Lee
Filed under Online Colleges
Every year, there are two public exams for secondary school students in Hong Kong, which are the HKALE and HKCEE. They are held in March to May. This system runs for more than thirty years. But, can students really get something form it?
Students may get an offer in university or secondary six. However, they may also get great pressure. Besides, they may be disappointed because their, like drawing and music, may be not approved by exams. Anyway, attaining public exam must be an unforgettable experience.
It seems that the Hong Kong educational system cannot fulfill people wants. Firstly, the system is too examination-orientated. In current educational system, primary school students need good academic result to enter a good or EMI secondary school; secondary school students need to use their public examination result to enter a good university,
On the other hand, compare with the students decades before, students nowadays need to handle study, group projects, presentations, and so on. Although people are still focus on the academic result of students, students have less time to do revision compare to the students years ago.
We can see that, actually, there is a contradiction. On one hard, people want the next generation become an all-rounder. On the other hand, people, including employers and university interviewers, usually only focus on the examination result of students.
But, using the exam result to distinguish good students and the bad one may not be fair enough. Some university graduates are complained by their employers because they finish their job poorly. That means some qualities like communication skills and sense of responsibility can not be determined by exams.
At the very beginning, people study because they want to know more. They want to have better knowledge and quipped themselves well. But, nowadays, students only target at good mark in exam. How can students study happily and meet the goal of education under this situation?
Thus, what can we do to improve the Hong Kong educational system? The first action is changing peopleć»s mind. People should not demand high-mark scorers in exam only. What our society need is an all-rounder but not the one who only good at one aspect.
I agree. The article made a few good points, but I have to say the English is really BAD. It’s ironic that the article is about education, high marks or not, this is why HK is falling behind. I have listened to professionals from Shanghai and Beijing speaking fluent English in interviews, often much MUCH better than their counterpart in HK. High marks doesn’t equate to competent. With over 200 years of British influence and English education in HK, the level of writing is very poor indeed. Singapore, Malaysia, Philippine and even China (3 out of 4 are still classified as 3rd world) are doing much better, why ? If this is what the past decades HK educational system has offered, problem you have !