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Liz Heron

HKCEE results show mother-tongue education is working, say officials

Education chiefs have hailed a three-year improvement in key examination results at Chinese-medium schools as vindication of the government's mother-tongue education policy.

The proportion  of Chinese-medium students obtaining five or more Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination passes has risen by 5.6 percentage points since 2002, while results at English-medium schools have been static, the Education and Manpower Bureau says.

Among middle-ability and high-ability  students, the increase is even higher - 9 and 7 percentage points respectively - and improvement has been seen in subjects across the board, including English.

Figures released by the bureau yesterday also show 15 students got 10 straight As, up from 11 last year.

The proportion of Chinese-medium students obtaining 14 points in their six best subjects - the minimum needed for them to take A-levels at the same school - has also risen by 2.8 percentage points since 2002.

Students picking up their HKCEE results today are the third group to have completed five years of secondary education since 300 schools - about three-quarters of the total - were forced to switch to teaching in Chinese in 1998.

'The HKCEE results in the past four years have consistently shown that mother-tongue teaching is taking root,' Principal Assistant Secretary Fanny Lam Fan Kit-fong said, without giving detailed figures.

'Since students learning through the mother tongue are more relaxed and mother-tongue teaching is more time-efficient, students can actually devote more time to learning English to compensate for the reduced exposure to English in classroom teaching.'

Mrs Lam said it took three to five years to see the effect of any new policy 'so we are quite encouraged by the results this year'.

Of the 300 Chinese-medium schools, half have adopted Chinese as the medium of instruction for all subjects or use English only for teaching either accounting or computer studies.

But this year, six Chinese-medium schools have switched back to English as the medium of instruction in all subjects taught in Form Four and Five except Chinese language and history.

Mrs Lam urged Chinese-medium schools not to switch, as it could increase the pressure on students.

William Yip Kam-yuen, chairman of the Secondary Schools Heads Association, said the improved results reflected the benefits of the mother-tongue policy.

'This is just the beginning,' he said. 'Within two to three years, I expect Chinese-medium students will perform better in A-level exams than students who attend English-medium schools.'

Au Pak-kuen, vice-president of the Professional Teachers Union, said teachers deserved credit for the 'remarkable' improvement.

'But the jury is still out on whether this is due to the introduction of Chinese-medium teaching.'

Doing the maths

30.6% of students gained the 14 points needed to take A-levels at the same school - down from 31.4% last year

62.8% gained eight points required for A-level study

15 students got 10 A grades, four more than last year

52.1% passed English (syllabus A), 70.6 per cent passed English (syllabus B)

8.7% - 17,751 students - got F or unclassified grades in all papers



Switch to teaching in Chinese 'vindicated'