The head of the English Medium Schools' Association has said she feels encouraged that the relaxation of rules on teaching language will mean 'more students will be able to learn in English'. 'It seems positive,' said Rosalind Chan Lo-sai, who met Permanent Secretary for Education Raymond Wong Hung-chiu on Tuesday. Ms Chan said there now seemed to be a consensus that schools should be allowed to stream students into Chinese and English classes rather than take a whole-school approach. 'We believe that the government should provide enough places for the top 40 per cent of students to learn in English instead of sacrificing a lot of people because a quarter of students [in the school] are not yet ready,' she said, referring to the long-standing policy on which students are deemed 'EMI capable' at Form One. The proposal is apparently part of the Education Bureau's long-awaited plans to 'fine-tune' the medium-of-instruction policy ahead of new rules due to come into force in 2010. The original proposals stated that schools could only teach in English if at least 85 per cent of their Form One students were in the top 40 per cent academically. An Education Bureau spokeswoman confirmed that Mr Wong this week met the heads of the four largest secondary schools associations.
