ITS Educational News

The new Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) has now gained recognition by UCAS (University and Colleges Admission Service) in the UK. This means that students who are studying within the local system in Hong Kong can apply for a degree place in the UK and their secondary qualification will be assessed in a way that is standardized and fair. Students will know how many tariff points they will receive for a particular grade in a subject, thus making it possible to predict the grades they will need in order to qualify for entry to particular courses in particular universities.

The assessment received from UCAS suggests that the HKDSE can be confidently thought of as equivalent to UK A -levels, as, in the past the HKALE was equivalent to the UK A-level. This will be very pleasing to parents and students alike.
Under the tariff points system adopted by British universities, a certain number of points are needed as an entry requirement for a course. These points are dependent on the type of course, as well as the quality of the university. Each grade level attracts a certain number of tariff points. The recently released assessment of the HKDSE shows that the points the qualification attracts are strongly in line with those awarded to grades in the UK.

There might, however, be a couple of minor issues with this assessment. It has been believed in Hong Kong that it is more difficult to achieve an A grade in HKALE than in UK A levels. If this belief is still held about theHK DSE, then giving virtually equal status to an A grade in Hong Kong and the UK still might not address this imbalance. Also, the majority of UK universities often stipulate that students should receive at least a C grade at GCSE English (and sometimes Maths) as a requirement for entry. At the moment, HKCEE is seen as an equivalent to the GCSE so students with an HKCEE grade of C or better in English are able to apply to a UK university. Those without a GCSE or HKCEE are assessed on a case by case basis or are required to take a language exam such as IELTS. Now the HKCEE is being phased out, the IELTS exam will become more common.

The assessment by UCAS is an important step for the HKDSE. Parents who were worried about the problems facing the 2011/ 2012 cohort in terms of university entrance in Hong Kong, should now feel another option has been opened for them, since the UK will find the new qualification as acceptable as the one it is replacing.

For more information Visit:- HKDSE explained

For more information visit:- Options for an International Education in Hong Kong

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By Bill Costello

On a recent trip to Hong Kong, I had the opportunity to visit a private school. The ISF Academy is located within the Island South district of Hong Kong Island. It offers a unique language program wherein students attain fluency in both English and standard Chinese by the end of grade 12.

As an American educational researcher, the purpose of my visit was to research school choices for expatriate families living in Hong Kong.

The waiting list to get into the ISF Academy is long, as is the case with most private and international schools in Hong Kong. Most expatriates choose to send their children to private or international schools; very few send their children to local schools. There are several reasons for this.

First, gaining entry into local schools is difficult because of the rigorous assessment system. Once enrolled, the learning environment is intensely competitive.

Second, most local schools use Cantonese as the medium of instruction—though a change to the language instruction policy will take effect in September allowing secondary schools to switch to English medium or adopt a mixed approach. Expatriate children who do not speak Cantonese find it extremely difficult to integrate into the current local school system.

Third, the curriculum provided by local schools does not prepare expatriate students for the learning environments they will face after graduation if they decide to attend overseas universities. Some expatriate parents feel that exposure to the international system at the primary and secondary level is the best way to prepare their children for a similar system at the tertiary level.

Expatriate families are not the only ones who prefer private and international schools over local schools. More and more local families are also coming to that conclusion because of globalization, rapid economic development in mainland China, and a variety of other reasons.

Malcolm Pritchard, principal of the ISF Academy, said: “The intention underlying the international schools is that they should cater to the needs of the very large expatriate community. The reality is that a lot of local families feel that international schools offer a broader range of curriculum choice, and therefore, you will find local students in international schools.”

For the past several years, Hong Kong has been one of the world’s fastest growing markets for international schools. The robust growth has been driven by increasing numbers of expatriate families moving to Hong Kong.
According to the Education Bureau, there are currently 51 international schools in Hong Kong.

Despite high tuition fees and the recent global financial crisis, the waiting lists to get into private and international schools are still long.

This is presenting a dilemma for professionals with families who are sent abroad by their companies to work in Hong Kong, and it’s a deterrent for companies trying to recruit them. Many foreign professions who are not able to enroll their children in a Hong Kong school choose not to relocate there.

In order to boost the competitiveness of Hong Kong as a destination for talented expatriates, the government plans to expand its pool of international school places. In the meantime, expatriate families will continue to struggle with waiting lists.

For expatriates who want help with the difficult process of searching for schools in Hong Kong, the ITS Tutorial School offers a school placement consultancy service.

Anne Murphy, director of training for ITS Corporate Training, offered this
advice: “The process of choosing a school for your child can seem extremely daunting, but we believe that early preparation and planning can help make a well informed choice.”

Principal Pritchard offered similar advice: “It would be prudent to contact schools well ahead of the transfer time to ascertain if there are any vacancies, what the entry requirements are, and to get your name down early.”

http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/32099

Bill Costello, M.Ed., is an education columnist and blogger. He visited ITS on Dec 14, 2009.
He can be reached at www.makingmindsmatter.com

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Schools in Hong Kong for children with special needs are somewhat limited – especially for expatriates. The lack of school places and support for expatriate children with Special Needs, especially for those over 16, has been described as ‘diabolical’ by parents. In the local system, SEN support includes early assessment and a guaranteed funded place in a mainstream or special needs school.

International Schools in Hong Kong for children with Special Needs

For expatriate children, the ESF continues to be the main provider of primary and secondary support for a wide range of special needs. Students whose special educational needs require more extensive teaching and learning adjustments are catered for within learning support classes within six ESF primary schools (Beacon Hill, Kowloon Junior, Bradbury, The Peak, Quarry Bay and Clearwater Bay schools) and three ESF secondary schools (KGV, South Island and West Island). There are currently 133 LSC places in total, 56 of which are secondary places. There are no learning support classes at Kindergarten level. The learning support classes have a teacher student ratio of 1:7 and students can participation within mainstream classes where appropriate. Entry to this type of special education provision is through a central process called the Admissions and Review Panel.  

Students whose special educational needs require the most extensive teaching and learning adjustments are catered for within the Jockey Club Sarah Roe School. The school is a modern purpose built special school situated adjacent to the campuses of KGV and Kowloon Junior in Homantin. The school has 60 places for students aged 5 – 18. It has an enrolment of sixty and a teacher student ratio of 1:7. Similar to the learning support classes entry is through the Admissions and Review Panel (ARP).

Some international schools in Hong Kong offer classes for children with minor learning disabilities and others offer more specialized individual and small group classes. However, the waitlists are long and the admission process is extremely selective and many parents fight for spaces each year. The schools that offer support are as follows: 

Australian International School 

Chinese International School

Discovery Bay International School

The Harbour School

Hong Lok Yuen International School 

International College Hong Kong

International Montessori School

Sear Rogers

Kellett Primary and Secondary School

Special Needs Education Centres for Adults

The Nesbitt Centre provides an English- speaking educational programme for adults with learning disabilities. The centre was set up in 1993 by David Nesbitt. He discovered that there was no English-speaking service for adults with intellectual disabilities in Hong Kong.
Mr. Nesbitt obtained a grant from the Queen Elizabeth Foundation for the Mentally Handicapped to set up an initial service. In June 1993, he obtained support and a commitment to ongoing funding from the Social Welfare Department. Since then, the service has evolved into the Hong Kong Vocational Centre, (HKVC) and now The Nesbitt Centre (TNC) a full-time organisation committed to the provision of integrated and person- centered opportunities for adults with learning disabilities.

The centre enables adults with special needs the opportunity to maximize their life potential. Individuals are guided, supported and encouraged to:

• take responsibility in the planning and management of their life activities,
• participate in a wide range of work, life, recreation and creative skill building programmes, and
• achieve confidence and independence through supported work and residency opportunities

As a parent of a child with special needs, you know what is important when finding a school. Not all schools provide special needs services and some schools do not have trained special education teachers on staff who can engage in specialized instruction. If you are moving to Hong Kong, it is important to check ahead of time whether the school you choose is adequately adapted. Do not assume that all schools are fully prepared for the needs of your child. If moving to Hong Kong, replicating the services your child has at home may not be possible, however, considering all available resources may shed light on a treatment, therapy or approach that may turn out to be the most valuable aspect of your school search.

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The joys of reading:  These days, when I ask  students what they like to read, they look at me as if I’m a bit mad. “Do you mean books?” they often ask, with a note of incredulity in their voices.

It’s true that in today’s world, the average teenager reads a lot less than in the past. Reading now has become a task which has been set and prescribed, often by a parent, in the case of a younger child, or a teacher in the case of an older one.

When I was a child, entertainments options were pretty limited.  I can easily understand why I spent so many hours of my childhood absorbed in books.  Yet I feel sorry for today’s young people. The vast array of entertainment options competing for their time usually means that reading is relegated to a homework task, generally one not relished.

If a young person does read, it is often books which have been commercially successful, linked to a high profile movie or received a lot of publicity. Books like Twilight and Harry Potter might have done much to sell the joys of reading to the younger generation but once those books are finished, it is often the case that the reader is finished with books.

So what is the current view and trend on the idea of reading and studying the ‘classics’ of Literature? My view is that those classic stories deal with themes and issues which are universal and enduring, and therefore, the reading and studying of them provides an excellent opportunity for young people to be exposed to valuable ideas. However, I do think that the relevance of those books needs to be ‘sold’ to the student, as it is not always obvious how the student might relate to materials written in such a different context.

An excellent example of this can be seen with a recent book, which was short-listed for the Booker prize a few years ago.  Lloyd Jones’ novel Mister Pip was a book about reading Dickens’s Great Expectations to a group of Pacific Island children in the 1990s.  The novel suggests that Dickens’s theme of wanting to escape and better oneself  was a universal one, since the children who were listening to the story found it fascinating and not at all difficult to relate to, despite the vast differences in geographical as well as chronological context.

I have recently read Great Expectations (a book I love) with a student in Hong Kong and to be honest, I found much of the language as well as a number of the details about Victorian England, quite obscure, requiring a great deal of explanation from me. So I remain unconvinced how easy it would be for children from such a different background to fully appreciate it.

But this doesn’t mean to say that context cannot be given in order to make a book or work of literature relevant and fulfilling to read.  A book like To Kill a Mocking Bird with its message of fairness and the lessons learnt about racism is as relevant to the modern world as when the book was written.

A story such as Lord of the Flies with its musings about the true nature of the human condition is also very relevant in a world where there are child soldiers and children facing the realities of war each day.

So I think that there is much to be gained from recommending the classics to children. Studying and reading some of the great works of literature, which have stood the test of time and which have messages for the modern reader, should be encouraged.

There are people all over the world who have, like me, gained many hours of pleasure from the simple act of reading.  A reader is always able to fill in a spare hour or entertain themselves.  This is a very important skill and one which I would hope to install in as many of my students as possible.

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School-based Assessment (SBA)

SBA (School-based Assessment) refers to assessments administered in schools and marked by the students’ own teachers with the marks counting towards their public assessment results. SBA will be implemented for all 24 subjects of the new senior secondary assessment by 2014, although for some of the core subjects, SBA will be fully implemented in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) examinations in 2012.

SBA has been implemented in subjects (some since 1978) where teachers assess students’ performance in specific areas, for example, the laboratory work of Chemistry and Biology and reading programmes of Chinese Language and Culture.

The primary rationale for SBA is to improve the validity of assessments, where certain components of some curricula cannot be readily assessed within the context of a one-off public examination. Subject teachers are no doubt in the best position to obtain assessments based on student performance over an extended period of time, which provides a more reliable assessment of the student. SBA can also help reduce the pressure of one-off examinations for students and the dependence on the result of these, which may not always provide the most reliable indication of the actual abilities of students.

The weighting of the SBA component varies from subject to subject, and while these are still under consideration by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA), they currently range from a minimum of 15% to as high as 50% for more practical subjects like Visual Arts. The mode of SBA can take the form of coursework, assessment tasks, extended essays, project work and practical tasks (especially for science subjects).

To help teachers and students understand the rationale behind SBA, assessment guidelines are given by the HKEAA for each subject with the aims of SBA for each of these clearly explained. Guidelines are also issued by the HKEAA so that teachers are clear about how marking and assessment should be carried out.

The HKEAA play a role in ensuring that there is uniformity in the marking standard among all schools and that assessments made by teachers are fair. Administrative guidelines are issued to teachers to ensure SBA is implemented fairly and there are regular meetings and training courses for different subject teachers to enhance teachers’ knowledge on assessment.

Parents should always advocate for their child and must be proactive and take all necessary steps to make sure their child receives appropriate services for their learning disability.

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