Education in Hong Kong

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997. As a result, its education system follows a British pattern. There is a three-year kindergarten education followed by six-year primary, three-year junior secondary, two-year senior secondary education and a two-year matriculation course leading to the advanced level examinations. There are tertiary institutions offering bachelor's degree, higher diploma and association degree courses.

Since the 1970s, a policy of nine years' free and compulsory education has been launched in Hong Kong. It includes six years of primary education and three years of secondary education.

Primary education in Hong Kong covers a wide curriculum, basically includes Chinese, English, mathematics, social studies, science, health education, music, physical education, and art and craft. The teaching medium in most of the schools is Chinese with English as a second language. Junior secondary education is an all-rounded general education. Students will stream in either art, science or business study in secondary four. The teaching medium in secondary school base on its own policy.

There is central allocation of places in junior secondary schools based on performance in primary school assessment. Children's progress in Chinese, English, and mathematics is evaluated yearly with standardized Hong Kong Attainment Tests. While most of the students can enter the senior secondary school according to their internal school assessments. After finishing secondary five, students will participate in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE). They will normally take part in three core subjects of English, Chinese, and mathematics. Upon completion of secondary seven, students will sit for the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE). The AS-Level Use of English and Chinese Language and Culture examinations are usually taken. The admission to the tertiary institutions will base on the result of HKALE under the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPUS).

From now on every students in Hong Kong have to sit HKCEE (Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination) after they have finished Form 5 level. Students in HK take this open examination very seriously. Most students have decided that the traditional day school teaching cannot fulfil the requirement to hunt for "A" grade, so many of them go to find private tuition or extension classes. However, those extension class teachers claim that they have professional qualifications and they charge a "professional high tuition fee", not for all subjects, but for majors like English, physics, economics, additional mathematics, geography etc. The class fee is commonly around $100 for each lesson and each subject.

After the screening process in HKCEE, those outstanding students need to face the HKALE (Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination) which is for screening for University entrance in HK. That means HK students have to face a series of open exams for 4 years continuously.

Tertiary Education

Tertiary education is a very concerning subject in Hong Kong. Chief-executive Tung Chee Hwa proposed to extend the number of tertiary education graduates to 60% of the whole population in 2010. In order to achieve his policy, the numbers of degree programmes, associate degree programmes and higher diploma programmes have dramatically increased throughout recent years.

Most believe the main difference between the associate degree and diploma is that associate degree can transfer to degree programme while higher diploma cannot. However this concept is wrong. Nowadays, many foreign universities accept students from higher diploma and associate degree. Higher diploma is programme that specify on particular field so that graduates can work on it for their career while associate degree studies a wide range of subjects. Conclusively, studying higher diploma is learning one specified technology while studying associate degree is for continuous education.

In the past, only the seven universities provide associate degree programmes for students. As the demand for the programmes is increasing, other organization, such as, poleungkuk, caritas also provide associate degree programme. Although the study fee from those organizations is less than those from the seven universities, the associate degree programmes provided by the seven universities are much popular and famous. It is because the seven universities provide better facility to their students. Besides that they have a high chance in transferring to degree programme. That is why people pretend to spend more money in studying.

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Testing

The Academic Aptitude Test was canceled in 2000. But the previous performance of it still affect the current secondary school place allocations.

Under the current process of Secondary School Places Allocation, the primary school students' grades are submitted in three examinations(the 2nd term in primary five, the 1st term and 2nd term of primary six). Then the grades are adjusted by the school's overall performance in the Academic Aptitude Test during 1997 to 1999.

Since the rank of a school at the Academic Aptitude Test is determined by the average result of students from the same school, it is quite unfair to those students who perform well at their term tests but finally fail to enter their favourite school because of the poor ranking of their primary school.

List of colleges and universities in Hong Kong

Tertiary education

Secondary education