My Take | TSA or no, Hong Kong school pressures to remain
A competitive education system will remain with or without the much reviled Territory-wide System Assessment, and it would be wise to acknowledge this
The multiyear protest against the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) has been a tremendous display of parents’ power. While some activist parents have not achieved their ultimate goal of having the Primary Three test cancelled, they have accomplished the next best thing.
Teachers and principals who still dare to talk about preparing pupils for the test, let alone doing it, can be expected to be taken out into the street and lynched by angry mobs.
The Education Bureau has promised to keep a close watch on how the revamped test – for competency in language and maths – is administered and crack down on any school that dares to subject students to excessive drilling.
And education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen, who is vice-president of the Professional Teachers’ Union, has vowed to keep a close watch on the bureau’s monitoring of schools. Any letdown, he says, will be met with more protests.
