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Education
Primary Education
Public-sector primary schools offer six years' free education. A child starts primary education at about age six. In September 2016, a total of 282,482 children were enrolled in 454 public-sector primary schools, comprising 34 government schools and 420 aided schools. In addition, 21 DSS primary schools offered 16,125 places and 57 private primary schools offered 37,331 places.
Admissions to Primary 1 in public-sector schools are administered through the centralised Primary One Admission System, divided into two stages: Discretionary Places Admission and Central Allocation. Each school will first earmark about 50 per cent of its Primary 1 places as discretionary places, and parents may apply to only one government or aided school within or outside the school catchment area, or 'school net, where they live. The remaining 50 per cent of Primary 1 places are for central allocation. Of these, 10 per cent are meant for parents to make up to three Unrestricted School Choices from any school net for their child, while 90 per cent are for parents to make Restricted School Choices in their school net in order of preference.
Secondary Education
Public-sector secondary schools also provide six years' free education. In September 2016, a total of 268,609 students were enrolled in 393 public-sector secondary schools, comprising 360 aided schools, 31 government schools and two caput schools that are subsidised according to the number of students admitted. There were also 61 DSS secondary schools offering 56,606 places and 21 private secondary schools offering 7,911 places.
All students undergo three years of junior secondary and three years of senior secondary education leading to the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination.
Subsidised Secondary 1 places are allocated through the Secondary School Places Allocation System, divided into two stages: Discretionary Places and Central Allocation. Schools participating in the system reserve not more than 30 per cent of their Secondary 1 places as discretionary places and parents may apply for their child direct to not more than two participating schools in any districts. The schools' remaining places, after deducting discretionary and repeater places, are used for central allocation, of which 10 per cent are meant for parents to make not more than three Unrestricted School Choices from any school net, while 90 per cent are for parents to make a maximum of 30 Restricted School Choices from the school net to which their child belongs.
Students completing junior secondary education normally remain in the same school for their senior secondary education or attend full-time, fully subvented vocational training courses run by the VTC.
Senior Secondary Curriculum
The senior secondary curriculum is flexible, coherent and diversified. It aims to cater for varied interests, needs, aptitudes and abilities. Students take four core subjects and acquire Other Learning Experiences. They can also choose two or three elective subjects from 20 senior secondary subjects, a range of Applied Learning (APL) courses and six Other Languages.
ApL courses are introduced at Secondary 5 and 6. They place equal emphasis on practice and theory linked to broad professional and vocational fields. In the 2016-18 cohort, 36 ApL courses
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