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SCMP Reporter

It's about time HKIEd got to change its name

On the question of the university status of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, it is absurd that even after HKIEd was granted self-accrediting status in 2004 and was included as one of the eight local institutions to be funded by the University Grants Committee, it is still not officially allowed to change its name to formally recognise its university status.

Considering that the predecessors; Baptist University, City University, and Polytechnic University were all granted full university status about a year after self-accrediting status was bestowed, it seems that the government is treating HKIEd unfairly and with bias.

HKIEd  is on track to establishing itself as one of the premier teacher-training institutions in the region, and has produced many high-quality professionals serving local primary and secondary schools. It would be unwise for local politicians to deny the accomplishments of the staff and student body because of some hidden agenda. I believe that now is the time for the government to finalise the process.

KRIS CHUI,

Mong Kok

Oral examinations need to be a lot fairer

The Hong Kong Examination Authority has overhauled the HKCEE English exam so that syllabuses A and B no longer exist. This means that employers will no longer be misled into believing that a syllabus A student with a C grade is very good at English. Instead, the candidate will be given a more accurate E grade. To do this, all candidates will be given the same questions in the exams, with varying degrees of difficulty. Strong candidates will excel but the weak will perform poorly.

That is not true, however, of the new English oral exam. Unlike in other years, this exam will start with a group discussion. In part two, the candidates will each be asked a question and will have to try to use as much of the 60 seconds allotted to answer it. According to guidelines issued by the Hong Kong Examination and Assessment Authority in September, the candidates will be asked different questions according to their English ability observed during the group discussion. In other words, stronger candidates will be asked a more difficult question, while the weaker students will be given a simpler one.

This has opened the door to unfairness and has brought us back to differentiating between students, which was what the abolition of the syllabus A and B streams was supposed to  eradicate.

On the one hand, no clear marking guidelines have been given. A strong student who gets stumped on the difficult question may score only two out of the possible five marks. The weak student who understands  the  easier question  and uses broken English to answer may get three marks. This is very unfair.

On the other hand, some schools have been teaching their students to 'hold back' in the discussion purposely so that they get an easier question in part two.

The correct  approach is to ask all candidates in all groups the same question. However, as the final exam is held over several weeks,  some students might inform friends who  will take the exam at a later date of the question. While  this method poses some difficulties, it is  better than the model put forward by the HKEAA.

In the authority's  handbook, FAQ#16 asks, 'Isn't it unfair that candidates are asked different question?' An answer is given, but the HKEA failed to include the first word in the answer: 'Yes'.

TUTORIAL SCHOOL ORAL EXAMINER

Too many reforms do not help students

Educational reforms that are too radical can cause problems. As a secondary student who is preparing for my HKCEE, I think  Hong Kong's education system has many shortcomings.

For example, the syllabuses of the public examinations  are  changing too fast, making it extremely difficult for students to prepare for exams.

The Education and Manpower Bureau should do something to improve the  education system.  It would be very helpful indeed if the government stopped introducing changes and reforms so often.

WINKY KWAN,

Kowloon Bay

Pursuit of religion a personal experience

I am grateful for 'Leaps of faith have nothing to do with dodging sabre-tooth tigers' (Education Post, November 2). I had heard of John Polkinghorne for more than two decades and knew he was coming to Hong Kong, but I was not able to attend his lecture. Your article was informative and enabled me to learn some of what he said.

'Religion and science are friends and have much to learn from each other' is a new statement and one to be wished for. I note that Chan Kwing-lam and Sun Kwok would not agree. Quarks and gluons are unknown to me. They belong to the understanding of sub-atomic particles. I would not say that they can  contribute to religious faith, but I can say that wonder can lead to worship. I would agree that the pursuit of religion has something to do with personal experience.

I set out to meet all these challenges in 1949. Then still not at university, I steeled myself to defend the Christian faith against scientific criticism, specialising in the theory of evolution by 1953. As a Catholic, my professors had no difficulty in thinking of evolution as a scientific hypothesis to help in understanding of living organisms. But I was wallowing around in imaginative conflicts of understanding. The key to all this is understanding what knowledge is and the nature of evidence and logic. It is an epistemological affair.

HAROLD NAYLOR,

Wah Yan College



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