Hong Kong exam assessors awarded HK$7m in bonuses

Hong Kong’s examinations authority on Wednesday defended its decision to give a special bonus of HK$7 million to its staff for the last academic year.

The Examinations and Assessment Authority confirmed that 90 per cent of its staff got the one-off benefit during the 2011- 2012 year.

Authority secretary general Tong Chong-sze explained at a press conference that the bonus was granted to reward the authority's staff for their hard work after they had dealt with a double cohort of candidates during the last academic year.

During that year, two batches of secondary school graduates took the university entrance public examinations as a result of education reforms.

The authority held the inaugural Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education exams as well as the last Hong Kong Advanced Levels exams.

Tong said 20 per cent of staff left the authority due to the heavy workload caused by the double cohort that year, and the bonus was used to retain them.

“In some departments, we had to publish job advertisements every week to find replacements,” he said. “From a crisis assessment point of view, we felt we must deal with this carefully.”