AROUND-the-clock hotline has been set up by the Education Department to answer any queries students or their parents might have about the Form Six Admission Procedure. The hotline, 891-0088, is an automatic answering service which gives details of the different admission stages, like when students should register for their own schools and for other schools. Available in English and Cantonese, the hotline will be in operation until the last day of the admission scheme. The service is free-of-charge but limited to tone system telephones. Mr Tsui See-ming, Assistant Director (Public Sector Reform), hopes the new service will help to lessen students' confusion and anxiety over the admission scheme. Mr Tsui said the Education Department released the information on the admission scheme earlier this year to give HKCEE candidates more time to study the procedure. Booklets on matriculation courses and the admission procedure have been distributed to schools and student guidance centres. The department has also started to mail the relevant information to private candidates through the Hongkong Examinations Authority. This year's admission procedure will be more or less the same as that of previous years. It is divided into five stages to be implemented within 11 working days. HKCEE candidates scoring a total of 14 points from their best six subjects can apply for their own schools or affiliated schools in the first stage, and for other schools in the second stage. Candidates with less than 14 points can apply for their own schools or affiliated schools in the third stage and for other schools in the fourth stage. Central allocation will be made in the final stage. To make sure that students will not apply for more than one school, a perforated admission slip will be attached to the candidates' results notice. Mr Tsui urged students to think carefully before accepting an offer from a school because once students accept the offer of a Form Six place, the admission slip will be detached and retained by the school as a record of admission. Having been implemented for two years now, the admission procedure is still new and confusing to some schools and students. The Education Department received 24 complaints about the scheme last year, including schools taking in students in advance and refusing to register qualified students.
