Early admissions a boost
for four-year programsRecently, several local universities announced they will admit brilliant Secondary 6 students in September. Admission to these universities depends on the students' results in the Hong Kong Certificate of Educa - tion Examination and principals' nominations. Qualified students will be exempt from the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination and can directly matriculate into local universities.
However, different quotas are available at different universities. The University Grants Committee will not provide funds for such early admission. It is the universities decision to admit the students and meet the additional expenses.
The aim of such an admission policy is to allow universities' independence to enrol brilliant and intelligent students. Local universities will enrol Secondary 6 students with a view to adapting to the change of three-year tertiary education to four years. This trend followed the Education Reform proposed by the Education Commission.
The new admission policy benefits Form 6 students in the sense that the Joint University Programmes Admissions System will no longer be the only route for qualified students to enter universities. Besides public examination results, the universities will also consider their non-academic achievements such as special talents in music, sports and arts, also their performances during interviews.
The exemption from the public examinations may reduce students' studying pressure. It may also induce a less exam-oriented curriculum in post-secondary education. Nevertheless, students are not exempt from competition. It is because the quotas for the early admission are limited to about two per cent of the total number of undergraduates admitted each year. Therefore, potential applicants take the risks of being turned down. Students may eventually fail to be exempt from the public examinations and enter the competition again. This certainly increases students’ anxiety to enter universities. It is, therefore, necessary for local universities to announce the details of the admission criteria, such as the number of choices students can apply for and the exact requirement for the HKCEE results.
In addition to the new policies of local universities, there is another early admission plan proposed by the Hong Kong Examinations Authority. It is suggested that in 2003, elite Secondary 6 students can sit for the HKALE one year earlier as private candidates. Comparing the two plans, it is obvious that the former one is preferable to the latter. The reason is that qualified students can skip the public examinations to study the four-year university programmes. Lisewise, it may be not applicable to allow Secondary 6 students to sit for the HKALE without amending the current syllabuses as they are originally designed for a two-year curriculum. The latter proposal, in fact, may put much pressure on students to do examinations.
It is foreseen that the proposed extension of the three-year first-degree programmes to four years will encourage local universities to admit more outstanding Secondary 6 students. A clear-cut plan is necessary for the smooth implementation of the Education Reform and unification of the university admission system.
Editor-in-Chief
