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Education

Students completing junior secondary education will 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 launched in September 2009 is flexible, coherent and diversified. It aims to cater for students' varied interests, needs, aptitudes and abilities. Students take four core subjects and acquire Other Learning Experiences. In addition, they can 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 2015-17 cohort, 40 ApL courses are offered under six areas of studies: Creative Studies; Media and Communication; Business, Management and Law; Services; Applied Science; and Engineering and Production.

On completion of their senior secondary study at Secondary 6, students can take the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination.

The HKDSE has gained extensive recognition in international benchmarking studies such as the National Recognition Information Centre report and the Tariff System of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service in the UK. The Australian government recognises the HKDSE as comparable to the Australian Senior Secondary School Certificate. Over 220 tertiary institutions worldwide, including renowned universities such as Oxford and Yale, recognise the new qualification for admission purposes, and more are being added.

In 2014, about 86 per cent of Secondary 6 graduates pursued further full-time studies, among whom about 11 per cent studied outside Hong Kong.

Under the State Ministry of Education's Scheme for Admission of Hong Kong Students to Mainland Higher Education Institutions, some Mainland higher education institutions admit Hong Kong students on the basis of their results in the HKDSE Examination and exempt them from taking the Joint Entrance Examination for Universities on the Mainland. More than 12,700 Hong Kong students submitted applications under the scheme from the 2012-13 to 2015-16 academic years, and more than 5,100 Hong Kong students were admitted by Mainland institutions. In the 2016-17 academic year, the number of participating institutions will further increase from 78 to 84, located in 14 Mainland provinces and municipalities and one autonomous region.

Chinese History Education

Chinese history is an important part of the curriculum for all primary and secondary schools. Content on Chinese history and the Chinese nation and culture is included in the General Studies subject at primary schools, while at junior secondary level, all schools must devote about two periods per week to Chinese history and culture. At the senior secondary level, Chinese History is one of the elective subjects.

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