Forms on the choice of secondary schools for Primary Six children under the Secondary School Places Allocation System have just been distributed to parents.
This year a total of 73,000 pupils are taking part in the allocation system. 'As with past practice, secondary school places are allocated by school net, by band, by random number and according to the parents' choices of schools. The Medium of Instruction Grouping Information serves only as a reference for parents and does not form the basis of secondary one places allocation.
'The Secondary One Choice of Schools Form is for parents to indicate their choices of secondary schools, based on the particulars in the Secondary Schools List of their respective school net,' the spokesman said.
All pupils should learn better through the mother tongue and so parents had been encouraged to choose schools using Chinese as the medium of instruction (MoI), the spokesman said.
'Our aim is to help students adopt the most appropriate MoI which will enable them to learn more easily, more enjoyably and more effectively.' The Education Department has recently completed a three-year study, findings of which show that: Mother-tongue teaching helps students achieve value-added performance in academic subjects in general; English-medium instruction is not an effective instruction mode for students who are advised to learn in the Chinese medium; Students can express more confidently in the more familiar language - Chinese, particularly in the language-loaded subjects, say History and Geography.
Parents should return the completed form to their children's schools promptly so that schools could return the form to the Education Department on or before May 12.
