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Professor Biggs said TOC enabled all students to benefit from learning and each student made progress according to how he learned.
The professor said: "Credit is given when a target is met; that is duly noted in the student's cumulative record. That record is a statement of what each student has been able to achieve; it is not a statement of what the student has not been able to achieve, nor is it a statement of how well or how poorly that student compares to others."
He added that TOC was in keeping with what was now known about how students learn and that the setting of definable stages, or "targets", for curriculum and assessment is part of a world-wide trend.
"Knowledge is not a collection of facts but a growing structure based upon facts. Learning grows gradually with time. Students construct their knowledge from their experience; increasingly, understanding interconnects with other topics and subjects and with previous learnings in the same topic," he said.
Professor Biggs is confident that Hong Kong will benefit from TOC.
Professor Biggs is retiring to Sydney this summer after eight years of active service in Hong Kong. He said he would miss his work on the Co-ordination Committee on evaluation of the development of Assessment Mechanism for TOC, on which he had served for nearly a year.
Also leaving the committee on retirement is Dr Siu Ping-kee, Reader at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Dr Siu was among the first group of academics and educators appointed to the TOC assessment committee. He has had a lengthy service on the Educational Research Section Policy Committee and has made valuable contributions to a number of major educational research programmes conducted by the Education Department.
End/Sunday, July 2, 1995
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