THE TIME FOR ACTION has arrived. After two years of deliberation and consultation, the Education Commission has proposed sweeping reforms of Hong Kong's education system. Now implementation can begin in earnest. The final blueprint - Learning For Life, Learning Through Life, which commission chairman Antony Leung Kam-chung presented to Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa on Thursday - brings to a close a period of unprecedented soul-searching into the woes of our education system. Few will disagree with the idealism underlying its recommendations. 'Life-long learning and all-round development' is the reforms' mantra. But there is nothing particularly revolutionary in this. Countries across the world are striving for the same, so some people might see Hong Kong as doing little more than responding to international trends. The commission has identified serious but obvious weaknesses that undermine the quest for life-long learning, including the often-repeated criticism that exam-driven learning by rote keeps young people from learning to think independently. Hong Kong's best schools do produce high-performing students. But the success of the few is built on the failure of the many, according to the commission. 'School life is usually monotonous. Students are not given comprehensive learning experiences and have little room to think, explore and create,' the report says. The proposed solutions are all-embracing: reforming academic structures, curricula and assessment mechanisms, from pre-school to higher and continuing education. There is no doubt as to the Government's seriousness. Implementation has already begun with the early decision, made in July, to abolish the Academic Aptitude Test for allocating secondary-school places. Upgrading of the teaching profession is also well under way. All pre-service-training programmes for primary- and secondary-school teachers will be of graduate level by 2004. New and existing buildings are being upgraded through the School Improvement Plan, and the first schools built to the new Year 2000 School Design enjoy larger, more-flexible spaces. The Quality Education Fund is inspiring innovation and improved educational practices with more than 2,700 projects. Assuming Mr Tung accepts the commission's recommendations, implementation will stretch over the next 10 years. Most immediately, the mechanism for allocating secondary-school places will be refined. Primary-one admission will be reformed, although in the transition period, schools will still be able to offer as many as half of their places on a discretionary basis, without exams. This will allow siblings to attend the same school, but one is left wondering what criteria will be used to allocate the remaining discretionary places. University admission will be reformed to place less emphasis on high-stakes public exams. New curricula will be developed to support student-centred learning. Basic Competency Assessments will be introduced in primary and secondary schools to monitor the ability of students in languages and maths. The quality of early-childhood education will be enhanced through minimum training standards for teachers and quality-control mechanisms. Inservice-training opportunities for principals and teachers will be increased. But the real test will be the extent to which the spirit of the reforms can be achieved. Already, compromises are evident. Ideals reflected in the commission's earlier proposals have been modified in response to those who are determined to defend the status and higher standards of elite schools. In its previous report, Excel and Grow, the commission recommended that banding be abolished, after a transition in which the current five bands would be reduced to three. In contrast, the latest document says, 'the number of bands will remain at three'. Banding is to be reduced in order to limit the negative-labelling effect, but children allocated to the new band three are unlikely to notice much difference between this and the lowly status of the current bands four and five. Until schools are of a more uniform quality across Hong Kong, teachers and parents will urge children to compete for places in elite schools. Public exams might be reduced, but new internal assessments and competency tests are likely to become crucial. The demand for high achievement in the key subjects of languages and maths is unlikely to reduce the burden of regular testing, and emphasis on these subjects could be at the expense of 'whole-person development' through the arts and physical education. Continued pressures mean homework is likely to remain excessive. So far, the reform exercise's greatest contribution is to give teachers and principals a mandate to fight for the best teaching and learning practices. For too long, those entering the profession with fresh skills and understanding have been stultified by inflexible school leadership. Opportunities provided by the reforms might motivate high-calibre students to join the teaching profession and give fresh motivation to competent teachers. But many uncertainties remain. Unlike the previous report, this one does not call on universities to increase their programmes from three to four years, with no extra money from the Government. Instead, the choice will be up to the universities. The report does still recommend making the transition to three-year senior-secondary schooling by abolishing Form Seven (at present, the final year of secondary school, for 18- or 19-year-olds). But when and how this will happen - including whether to abolish A-levels (the advanced-level exams, by which students currently advance from Form Seven to university) as well as the Hong Kong Certificate Of Education Examinations, (the HKCEEs, by which students advance from Form Five to forms Six and Seven) in favour of a single public exam at the end of secondary school - will not be reviewed until 2002. Many fear that a new exam, taken a year earlier, will not carry the same recognition as the current A-level. Already, many have decided their children cannot afford to be guinea pigs and so have opted out of the system by sending their children to international or overseas schools. Public spending on education is $45 billion this year and takes up about four per cent of Hong Kong's gross domestic product. This is low compared with the seven per cent typical in much of the developed world. The commission recommends the Government boost its spending. Beyond that, however, the report barely mentions the Government's role in ensuring reforms are implemented. Schools, universities and teachers will bear the brunt of the changes. The community and parents will also be affected, as the report urges them to share the cost of, and responsibility for, reform. There is fear that if the report's ambitious agenda is not achieved, those on the front line, and society in general, will be blamed. But the problems facing Hong Kong's education system come down largely to a decades-long lack of investment to provide adequate space, making it impossible to cater to individual rather than mass needs. As Hong Kong embarks on reforms, it should understand that nowhere has reform been smooth or wholly successful. In other countries striving for a new culture of learning, the sense of woe, crisis and failure in education is equally strong, and problems still abound in the classroom. Katherine Forestier is the Post's Education Editor ( kforestier@scmp.com )
