Penny Shen, Chung Hom Kok

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the removal of the old Star Ferry pier in Central, in one way at least the demolition has not gone far enough.

The other day I had to rescue a group of Japanese tourists, who were waiting patiently for a taxi at the still clearly signposted taxi rank at the old pier. I believe they had been standing there for quite some time. The rank has been transferred to the new ferry pier - but a stranger to Hong Kong could not possibly know that. The signs for that disused taxi rank have been left in place, which is misleading to visitors. Isn't it time these signs were removed?

Paul Surtees, Mid-Levels

Do you think bank charges are too high?

The problem with HSBC is that it has this status as 'world's bank' and when you arrive in Hong Kong you naturally gravitate there.

This gives the bank an amazing amount of power to set charges on account holders. Most people are too busy or lazy to search for the best account. But, as Barclay Crawford's report in Monday's paper showed, the time has come to strike back. I urge people to complain about this unjust imposition of fees.

John Bradord, Sheung Wan

On other matters ...

Let me save the Federation of Youth Groups time and money. You don't need a survey to prove the obvious. Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea have the highest adolescent suicide rates in the world due to academic stress. In Hong Kong, this pressure is evident from Primary 1 admission, Primary 3 and 6 Territory-wide Assessment, Form One through to the 'life or death' cut-offs at Forms Three, Five and Seven. The federation urged students to not view the public examinations as a matter of life or death. Sorry, but it is.

Let's look at the exams and interviews and cut-offs that Hong Kong students face.

One hopes to get into a good kindergarten by passing the oral interview. Toddlers even attend private lessons to prepare for this first hurdle. Welcome to stress No 1.

Then, the quest continues to be admitted into a good primary school by again, presenting a convincing portfolio and passing another admission interview. Of course, you are streamed and banded for life and ranked among your peers time and again, in report after report. Isn't it nice to be branded with the rank of X out of 200 for the next 10 or more years?

We continue merrily along with our four sets of exams each year which, with revision, sitting the papers, correction, and reporting consume about 10 per cent of 'instruction' time.

Then we are faced with the Primary Three and Primary Six territory-wide system assessment.

Naturally, the Education and Manpower Bureau has created this 'measure' for our students, and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority - the true weapon of mass destruction - gleefully designs and administers it.

We are told that this is a low-stakes assessment, no individual reports are made and that schools are to keep the results confidential.

Naturally, we only use the results as a true territory-wide assessment to benchmark our pupils in English, Chinese, and maths. As true professionals, we modify the curriculum to address these strengths and weaknesses to meet the needs of our pupils. Not!

We want our school to have good results and a good reputation so we run our own mock-training-cram sessions after school and deprive our pupils of a normal childhood by denying them extra-curricular activities.

The next hurdle is to leap from Primary Six to Form One in a single bound. We look at the Primary Six school academic results and come up with a magic formula to get into the right secondary school.

The allocation scheme is a gamble. Do you risk playing the game of central allocation or discretionary places and hope to pass yet another admissions interview and present good exam results to get into a better secondary school, and/or enter the English medium of instruction sweepstakes?

We're not finished yet. You have played 'Hong Kong education monopoly' and won a place in a secondary school: Form 1, and guess what?

You haven't even started classes and you sit the academic aptitude test in July to be banded into the appropriate level of class within your secondary school. Once again, you are X out of 200!

Free education ends at Form Three and you are faced with a double amputation. You have the Form Three territory-wide system assessment and, if your school exam results are poor, you risk being removed from your school and downgraded to a worse school if you want to continue your education.

Now, we really play survivor. Even if you pass your Form Five O-level public exams, you might not be able to continue your A-level education. Government policy is to not provide, and not expand to provide an adequate number of places for all successful candidates. Most secondary schools have five classes at the Form Five level and only two classes at the Form Six/Seven level.

We can reduce our upper secondary population with a wave of a magic 'live or die' wand, so most cannot matriculate.

Hong Kong, Asia's world city?

Philip Richards, Sheung Wan