Hong Kong has embarked on the most ambitious education reform programme in its history - ditching the high-stakes A-level exam for a broad-based diploma. And as government and aided schools roll out the three-year curriculum leading to the first Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education exams in 2012, the International Baccalaureate Diploma has eclipsed the British A-level as the main qualification in the international sector.
All final-year students across the English Schools Foundation's five secondary schools took the IB Diploma for the first time last year, and the vast majority of independent schools have adopted IB programmes as their curriculum of choice.
For parents used to the certainties of three A-levels as a route to university for academically oriented students, the new exams pose a conundrum.
What standard do students need to achieve to get into good universities in Hong Kong and around the world? How do the standards of the two exams compare? Are they easier or harder than A-levels? Which one gives a better chance of getting to university?
Figures released by the ESF on university destinations of 710 students who took the IB Diploma last year provide some useful indicators on how it performs as a matriculation exam. They show that more of the IB students got into top-ranked universities worldwide than did ESF A-level students in 2008.
Among last year's IB students, 136 got into top-30 universities and 265 got into the top 50 in the Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings, compared to 109 and 249, respectively, for the A-level students.
