Parents threaten to boycott Hong Kong exams if government fails to scrap next year’s tests

NAOMI.NG@SCMP.COM

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 10 December, 2015, 4:24pm

UPDATED : Thursday, 10 December, 2015, 4:56pm

Parents are far from happy with the Primary Three exams. Photo: Felix Wong.

A group of parents say they have the right to boycott the much criticised Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) if the government fails to announce by Christmas that it will scrap the tests set for next June.

“Schools have already started assigning holiday homework and arranging for supplementary classes over Christmas. If our children are spending the holidays doing that then it just means they don’t actually have a real holiday,” said Ho Mei-yee, convener of a concern group on the issue.

READ MORE: ‘Give our kids a happy childhood’: 40,000 parents and teachers renew call to scrap ‘tormenting’ Hong Kong primary school exam

Ho cited article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is celebrated today on Human Rights Day. It safeguards the rights of parents to choose the kind of education needed for their children.

“Parents have the right to choose to not let their children do the extra exercises, supplementary classes and also the exams,” said Ho.

The group added that not collecting TSA results for one year would not have much of an impact considering the education bureau already had 11 years’ worth of data since the exams were introduced.

Parents are threatening a boycott of next year’s TSA exams. Photo: Felix WongIn November, education minister Eddie Ng Hak-kim said a committee had been set up to review whether the exams were too difficult, how questions should be arranged and whether the tests could be taken every other year by a sample of pupils, instead of by everyone every year.

READ MORE: Hong Kong parents plan class boycott over TSA exam pressure on pupils

Lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen, who represents the education sector and the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, said the committee should not be focused on reviewing just technical aspects and the implementation of the exams, but instead should do a more comprehensive review on whether such tests were actually needed.

A Facebook campaign calling for the abolition of the exams that attracted at least 46,000 followers recently asked parents to teach their children to give random answers so it would render the exam results meaningless.

Ip advised against the idea and said it would send mixed signals to children about the right learning attitude.

The exams, which were introduced in 2004 to assess the basic levels of Primary Three and Six and Form Three pupils in Chinese, English and maths, have come under fire for leading to drilling and excessive homework.

http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1889259/parents-threaten-boycott-hong-kong-exams-if