Chinese-medium students face varsity handicap
The Education Bureau should allow schools more flexibility in the choice of language...
The Education Bureau is reported to be sitting on a report which shows that students from Chinese-medium secondary schools have a 75 percent less chance of entering the University of Hong Kong when compared with students from English-medium schools.Their chances of entering other universities are 50 percent less,according to a series of series of comparative studies commissioned by the government........
The education reform at the time had caused caused concern among parents with some families sending their children abroad and others switching from government to international schools.
......Even for students who had similar academic performances in primary schools,those from Chinese-medium secondary schools were 20 percent lower in their English proficiency than their counterparts from English medium schools.The gap continued to widen as the students grew older,the report shows.
There are currently about 400 government-funded secondary schools but only a quarter of them use English as the medium of instruction.
Tsang Wing-kwong,a professor in the Chinese University's department of educational administration and policy and one of the researchers,said:''The Education Bureau should allow schools more flexibility in the choice of language.It should be determined by the school subjects and the special needs of students.''
Tsang said the current setting would undermine the confidence of students from Chinese-medium secondary schools in practicing and learning English......