TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 465

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and traditions is a very attractive one. Once control of entry had

removed the competitive element there would appear to be every reason

to widen the feeder system, especially since the implementation of the

1978 White Paper should eventually result in all secondary schools

becoming acceptable in standard.

5.

The Green Paper decribes one possible system of control which

the government is prepared to implement: this aims to leave the maximum

possible discretion with parents but retain enough discretion on the

part of the school to protect its traditions. Above all, it does away

completely with testing. A district system is envisaged, in which as

many children as possible would be allocated to schools within easy

reach of their homes. To achieve this, the territory would be divided

into district nets, each net being considerably smaller than those

currently used for allocation to secondary schools. The nets would

be adjusted to ensure a reasonable choice of different types of primary

school in each net and parents' choice of school would be the main

would

criterion for allocation within the net.

However, in order to permit

schools to retain their traditional links, they would be allowed to

select a proportion of their intake if they wished, before any allocation

took place, but this selection would itself be subject to some measure of

control. The essence of the proposal is that allocation would be based

on the parents' choices and not on the child's ability, through a system

designed to ensure that the greatest possible number of pupils were

allocated to a school high on their parents' preference list.

6.

Until 1977 the selection of pupils for the then limited number

of public-sector secondary school places was by public examination

the Secondary School Entrance Examination (SSEE). All candidates were

required to take the examination in three basic subjects'

and mathematics in one afternoon.

Chinese, English

Allocation was carried out in "bands"

in which parents' first choices were considered in strict order of merit,

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