CAN anyone please explain why Hong Kong schools , and to a certain extent, several of the supposedly leading independent schools in Britain, place such great importance on a child's academic attainment as a condition for entry? It would appear that children are now 'pigeon-holed' at an early stage of their education such that the amount of teaching required is minimised, presumably as a cost-effective measure.

In Britain, great emphasis was originally placed on the so-called academic league tables of schools, where the number of pupils achieving GCSE results determined their school's ranking.

However, it has now been realised that the majority of schools at the top of such tables operate an entry system. In reality however, the number of pupils obtaining high results, when expressed as a percentage of their intake, was in most cases, lower than in schools where such entry requirements were not imposed to the same degree.