SHIRLEY ZHAO
SHIRLEY.ZHAO@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 04 November, 2015, 4:59pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 04 November, 2015, 5:01pm
Education minister Eddie Ng annoyed lawmakers because he is unable to attend a public hearing. Photo: Felix Wong
The education minister has turned down a request to attend a public hearing on a much criticised city-wide exam, saying he will be out of town for “personal reasons” on the date of the meeting.
Eddie Ng Hak-kim also reiterated that the Education Bureau would not scrap the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) for Primary Three pupils immediately.
At a Legislative Council meeting today, industrial sector lawmaker Lam Tai-fai, who is also chairman of Legco’s education panel, said he had arranged for a public hearing on the assessment on November 29 and invited Ng to attend.
“You have made many mistakes in handling the national education issue, the recent lead-in-water controversy and the TSA,” said Lam. “No wonder many people feel that you are not a competent bureau chief.”
Ng said he had arranged a private outbound trip several months ago.
If the time is more flexible that will be better … But I really wanted to attend [the hearing]
MINISTER EDDIE NG
“It’s such a pity that I was not previously consulted on the date [of the hearing],” said Ng. “If the time is more flexible that will be better … But I really wanted to attend [the hearing].”
League of Social Democrats lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung demanded to know the personal reasons and asked Ng whether primary school children could also decline to take TSA exams for personal reasons, but Ng did not give him an answer.
Ng said a committee had been set up to review whether the TSA exams for Primary Three pupils were too difficult, how the questions should be arranged and whether the exams could be taken every other year by a sample of pupils.
Since 2004, pupils in Primary Three and Six and Form Three at government schools have taken the test, which aims to assess pupils’ abilities in Chinese, English and mathematics so the Education Bureau can monitor their progress and their schools’ academic standards.
Ng said the results of the tests would not be used to determine secondary school allocation or schools’ resource allocation, so no drilling was required. But some principals have said that Ng’s bureau has been putting pressure on them to raise their schools’ TSA performance.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1875627/hong-kong-ministers-no-show-eddie-ng-unable
