TSA replacement exams go ahead despite rain warnings, but students still boycott
Principal says schools ‘caught between some parents and the Education Bureau’ over controversial tests
Thousands of Primary Three pupils arrived at school on Tuesday morning to take a new, revised version of the controversial Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) exam.
At Grantham College of Education Past Students’ Association Whampoa Primary School, 111 out of 141 Primary Three pupils, aged nine or 10, sat the 170-minute exam, including 85 minutes on the test and the remainder for a break, paper distribution and collection.
Some 20 pupils turned up at school but boycotted the exam. Another three boycotters did not go to school as their parents claimed they were ill, and seven were absent for other reasons.
The red rainstorm warningwas issued at 8.45am, when most pupils at morning- or whole day-session primary schools had already arrived at school, so the Chinese written exam of the BCA carried on.