Hong Kong’s ‘objective’ student evaluations are a blight that need to be removed

While Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has promised to turn his attention to livelihood issues, he doesn’t seem to be including education in this, even though it defines the lives of countless children, teachers and parents.

Sitting behind their desks, bureaucrats don’t see the misery their schemes have dispensed. Take the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA), for instance. Imposed on Primary Three  and Six  children, plus Form Three  at the secondary level, it is supposed to “facilitate assessment for learning by providing schools with objective data on students’ performance” in Chinese, English and maths.

Unfortunately, as so often happens, bureaucrats never reckon with the law of unintended consequences. “Assessment” has become the master, and “teaching” is reduced to its servant.  

When the scheme first began, its intention was honourable: to replace one “do-or-die” school-entrance exam, with two, thus spreading the risk and reducing the pressure on pupils. When it came under attack, it was downgraded to a school assessment. But what the government handed down became commandments on a tablet.  

Consequently, schools have devoted two years to priming their students – the year before and the year during each assessment – turning teachers into drill masters and students into sufferers.

Our public primary schools are among the world’s most stressful, producing emotionally brittle kids with no interest and curiosity in learning.  

If you listen to the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, the TSA reports are supposed to “provide information about students’ strengths and weaknesses against specific basic competencies”. Further, these reports are said to “help schools and teachers enhance their plans on learning and teaching”. In fact, they do neither. Instead, they give functionaries the tool to browbeat the schools, urging them to drill even harder, ratcheting up the pressure on everyone.