TNAG-0473-FCO40-538-Hong-Kong-government-policy-on-education-1974 — Page 206

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teaching in Chinese.

Nevertheless, decisions on the medium of

instruction should, for the foreseeable future, be left to

individual school authorities, who are best placed to assess

the needs of children attending their schools. It follows that

a pupil will take the new Hong Kong Junior Certificate Examination in the language of instruction used by his school.

2.14

Examinations

The Government acknowledges that the existing

Secondary School Entrance Examination should be phased out

as soon as it is no longer required for its present purpose

of determining whether a child should receive subsidised

secondary education. This will be possible as soon as the

target of 100% provision of junior secondary places (paragraph 2.2) is achieved.

2.15

A new public examination, the Hong Kong Junior

Certificate of Education, will be introduced at the end of the junior secondary school course, to serve two functions.

Firstly, it will provide evidence that a pupil has satisfactorily completed his education to Form III standard,

which should assist him in securing employment if he leaves

school at this stage. Secondly, it will serve as the means

of selection for those who wish to continue their studies

beyond Form III. The examination will be based on the common teaching syllabus for the junior secondary schools course and will not have a special syllabus of its own.

2.16

It would make unreasonable demands on a pupil to

require him to take both the Secondary School Entrance Examination and the Hong Kong Junior Certificate of Education. For this reason, the Hong Kong Junior Certificate of Education will only be introduced after the Secondary School Entrance

/Examination