English Schools Foundation students grab half of Hong Kong’s perfect International Baccalaureate scores in year without written exams

More than half of the 23 Hong Kong students earning perfect scores on this year’s International Baccalaureate diploma exams came from the English Schools Foundation (ESF), Hong Kong’s biggest international school operator.

Ten of the 12 ESF students to score a top grade of 45 are expected to continue their studies at top universities in Britain and the United States, while one plans to study at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and another will take a gap year.

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Due to this year’s unprecedented cancellation of written exams amid the Covid-19 pandemic, pupils were graded under a special mechanism that took into account criteria such as coursework and predicted scores in mock exams.

Last year, ESF, which runs seven secondary schools across the city, taught 20 of the 34 Hong Kong students who earned perfect scores.

Jun Yeji Lim, who has received an unconditional offer to study medicine at HKU, is among those who scored a perfect 45 this year. A hospital job-shadowing experience last year prompted her to make up her mind to become a doctor, she said.

“I shadowed a professor from Chinese University at Prince of Wales Hospital and it was for three days. I went through different specialities [such as] paediatrics,” the 17-year-old said.

“I saw how doctors all treated patients with lots of sensitivity, even though the patients were mostly kids, and they got agitated very easily and started crying … I realised that’s something that I want to do.

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“I want to make sure that [no matter if] they are children or adults … they [would] feel better about their illnesses.”

Lim, who moved to Hong Kong from South Korea about seven years ago, said she initially also applied to medical schools in Britain, but eventually decided to stay with her parents “for as long as I can”.

Another top scorer, 18-year-old Charmaine Yuen Choi-ming, is expected to major in jurisprudence at the University of Oxford. She said because the subject was relatively broad, it could provide her with a wider scope and “a ton of possibilities” for future development paths.

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Asked about her career aspirations, she said: “I would like to start with individual cases of injustice, maybe more on the commercial side … There [are various fields in] small claims, business, commercial and insurance.”

ESF chief executive Belinda Greer said the students’ achievements were “amazing” given the cancellation of written exams amid enormous difficulties.

“Students had to work even harder to get perfect scores, because they were not able to rely on just performing well in the exam. They had to have the highest level throughout the year, so it had to be really consistent,” Greer said.

At German Swiss International School, one student achieved a perfect grade this year, while 10 others scored a near-perfect 44 points. Top scorer Ruth Scharff-Hansen said she was “relieved and humbled” after receiving her final grades.

“When exams were cancelled, it felt very anticlimactic … Prior to receiving results, I was especially anxious, because I could not predict my score, having not sat final papers,” she told the Post in a written reply.

The Independent Schools Foundation Academy (ISF), meanwhile, had five students score either 44 or 43 points. Head of school Malcolm Pritchard praised students for their “resilience, diligence and adaptability” during a tumultuous 2020 school year.