Students with poor Chinese-language results can find study options abroad

Joining hordes of parents and teenagers at an exhibition last weekend on UK education, Mr Chan (not his real name), a father of two teenage children, is considering sending them abroad after they finish secondary education.

He is not alone in looking to find alternative pathways for his children. Many others have been put off by the large number of graduates who can't get into local universities after failing to make the grade in Chinese language in this year's Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education examination, the results of which were released two weeks ago.

Only 50.7 per cent of the candidates met the minimum university requirement in Chinese, making it the worst performing core subject this year. "It's so cruel," says the anxious father, who would only say that he worked in the banking sector.

"I am worried about my two kids who are attending English-medium schools. It is very difficult to meet the minimum requirement for Chinese. Even if they make it, how high is their chance of getting into a good local university? Universities here give many of their places to mainland students," he adds.

Luckily, study options are not in short supply, either abroad or locally. But the array of choices makes it important for parents and students to choose wisely.

Studying abroad certainly has benefits, such as fostering independence. But it is a costly option, and parents needs to be mindful of colleges with lax admissions requirements; they may have poor quality teaching that will not give foreign students the support and learning opportunities they thought they had paid for.