The head of a prestigious girls' school criticised the proposed education re vamp during the school's speech day.
'Hong Kong might be worse off if our education system were to undergo a complete overhaul as proposed,' said Heep Yunn School principal Millie Lai Lau Wei-kit, as guest-of-honour Professor Cheng Kai-ming, pro-vice chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, listened.
Professor Cheng is a member of the Education Commission, which proposed the revamp of the education system which been blamed for declining standards.
Mrs Lai was opposed to the scrapping of the Academic Aptitude Test and the Secondary School Places Allocation System, saying the the test could be improved while the allocation system, which she considered 'effective generally', should be retained.
She also questioned the three alternative allocation methods suggested in the proposal. She said random allocation would result in a great range of abilities among students and pose problems for teachers; linking primary and secondary schools was impossible given the great dis parity in their qualities; and recruitment by schools themselves would create competition and put the unpopular ones at a disadvantage.
Mrs Lai also said the long-established and elite schools were 'treated with contempt', 'viewed as a burden to our education system' and 'left with little facilities and funds to slowly build up a quality culture'.
The Government, the press and the education sector should change their attitude and learn from these schools how to develop a quality culture that parents embraced, she said.
