Pupils cross fingers for Primary One places

School allocations for Primary One will be announced today under a new admissions system that has cut the proportion of places allocated at the schools' discretion from 65 per cent to 50.

Fifty-two per cent of 64,000 pupils will gain a place in their favoured school, the remainder will go into central allocation in February. Government and subsidised primary schools were not allowed this year to conduct face-to-face interviews or written exams to select pupils.