Primary Three and Secondary Three students didn’t fare too badly in this year’s Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA), according to a report by the Hong Kong Examinations & Assessment Authority.
On Tuesday, the Education Bureau said it had received the 2018 TSA report from the assessment authority. In the three assessed subjects – Chinese Language, English Language, and Mathematics – both primary and secondary students performed consistently well.
In the Chinese and English assessments, students were tested on their listening, reading, and writing skills. The report found that 76.9 per cent of secondary three students reached the basic competency level in Chinese, and 69.8 per cent did so in English. This is slightly lower than last year’s figures of 77.1 per cent and 69.7 per cent respectively.
We all need to calm down about the TSA
Meanwhile, 80 per cent of Secondary Three students reached the basic competency level in maths this year, a slight improvement on 79.9 per cent in 2017.
The annual TSA is meant to look at how well schools and teachers are implementing the curriculum, and whether or not students are meeting certain learning targets.
This was this first year that the Primary Three assessments were carried out on a sampling basis, without collecting student or school names, and without reports on individual schools. A spokesperson for the bureau said that the updates to the TSA put a lot less pressure on teachers and students.
“The new arrangements have re-established the TSA as a low-stakes assessment without the need for drilling, and the education sector is generally satisfied with them,” they said.