The panel reviewing school assessments in Hong Kong has yet to agree on whether primary three students will need to take a contentious exam this year.
On Wednesday, the Coordinating Committee on Basic Competency Assessment and Assessment Literacy presented conflicting views on how to roll out the assessment if it was to be implemented, and agreed to meet again before March.
Sin Kim-wai, chairman of the Hong Kong Subsidized Secondary Schools Council, said there had been several proposals, including suspending the test for primary three students, holding the test biannually and randomly selecting schools to take the test.
However, Sin said that there had been no final agreement and that the panel’s proposals will now be analysed before the committee files a report to the Education Bureau.
On Saturday, the South China Morning Post reported Hong Kong’s Secretary for Education, Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, as saying that the Bureau is likely to make a decision in March on whether to hold the Basic Competency Assessment (BCA) after it received the recommendations.
However, Annie Cheung Yim-shuen, a spokeswoman for Parents United, said the decision had been delayed for so long that the government should suspend the assessment this year.
Yim-shuen added that many schools were already rigorously testing students without any information on the status of the exam.
During her election campaign in 2017, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, had said she would suspend the assessment until a review was completed.Related stories:
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