Hong Kong students will find it just as easy to gain entry to overseas universities under the new senior secondary structure as they do at the moment, the head of the exams authority said yesterday.
Speaking at the Legislative Council's education panel, Peter Hill, secretary-general of the Examinations and Assessment Authority, said major British universities had welcomed students with six years of secondary education and that they had no problem with the basic structure of the Diploma of Secondary Education - the examination that students will have to sit under the new academic curriculum.
He said the exams authority would let overseas universities know the content of the curriculum and exams, which had recently been finalised.
Dr Hill added that in a globalised world, universities everywhere were keen to recruit high-quality students.
'Hong Kong students have done extremely well in international surveys [and] have no problem in English,' he said. 'They can also pay.'
While some universities, such as Cambridge, have reservations about admitting students under the age of 18, Dr Hill said the view was not universal and that a small number of students would be affected.