C5
judged solely on performance in the SSEE. Before its abolition the
SSEE was criticised on the grounds that it led to cramming in the three
main academic subjects to the neglect of other areas of the curriculum,
thus distorting the aims of primary education; the fact that it was a
public examination created widespread anxiety among children (and
their parents); a child's future education was determined at the age
of 11 in one single afternoon; and it led to certain secondary schools
getting most of the academically able pupils.
7.
Although the basic education course has now been extended
to the secondary sector a system of allocation is still necessary because
of the wide variety of secondary schools available and (given the problems
arising from rapid large-scale expansion) the uneven standards of provision.
However, the SSEE has now been replaced by a new allocation system, the
Secondary School Places Allocation (SSPA) system, which seeks to effect
a more balanced education in primary schools, to reduce public examination
pressure on pupils, to introduce a measure of regionalisation, and to
achieve a degree of mixed ability in the intake to Form I. Like the SSEE,
the SSPA bases its allocation on ability. But unlike the SSEE, which
measured ability by public examination, the SSPA measures pupils' ability
by teachers' assessments that is, normal school tests or examinations
taken over an eighteen-month period: a pupil's performance therefore
depends primarily on his work, assessed by teachers of his own school
over a relatively long period of time. All participating schools teach
and assess a wide range of subjects, most of them encompassing Chinese,
English, mathematics, social studies, health education, nature study,
music, art and craft. This ensures a more balanced primary school
curriculum, and a pupil's future no longer depends on one afternoon's
examination.
8.
Since it is virtually impossible to ensure that all primary
schools adopt the same standards, a public scaling test, known as the