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difficulties in that the anxiety caused by a shortage of local tertiary
places is compounded by the confusion arising from the lack of a uniform
system of entry to the tertiary institutions. This problem, and the
3.
The value of a
closely associated problem of the sixth-form curriculum, have been under
close scrutiny for some time and are dealt with later in this appendix.
It is with the more serious and widespread effects of competition on
the young child (a process that may have begun to affect him tangibly
by the age of three or four) that the 1980 Green Paper is concerned.
On the theme of competition the Green Paper points out that
the way kindergartens are publicly regarded in Hong Kong does not
encourage development on modern educational lines; pre-primary education
is not usually seen as a development period having its own crucial
importance but rather as a preparation for entry to a well-known primary
school, so that the children can have a headstart for a place in a popular
secondary school and ultimately go on to a university.
kindergarten is often judged by its success in this direction and many
kindergartens are themselves competitive and highly selective. In view
of the large number of applications to such kindergartens selection is
usually by interview, and to prepare for this children are coached
consequently both parents and children are under pressure from the start.
The competition to enter a school at the next level with a reputation
for a high success' rate, quite apart from the stress it causes, has a
marked effect on curriculum. At the kindergarten level, instead of developing
basic skills, concepts and attitudes, schools tend to concentrate on academic
skills in Chinese and arithmetic and even (very much against Departmental
advice) in English. The result is that at the lower primary level schools
are faced with the task of trying to teach children with a very wide range
of experience, some of which may have been educationally harmful. At the
upper primary level unnecessary preparation for the Academic Aptitude-
Test (described later in this appendix), together with preparation for
school internal assessment tests on which the educational future of the
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