Hong Kong DSE pupils ‘not affected by rising number of private candidates’

The performance of local students in Hong Kong’s university entrance exams has not been affected by an influx of private candidates, authorities have said, even though the number of mainland Chinese participants has grown substantially and includes some whose eligibility has been questioned. The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority’s defence coincides with calls from lawmakers for more stringent regulations over collaboration between local private secondary schools and mainland institutions. Some have speculated that mainland students taking the Hong Kong exams had been drilled at tutorial schools across the border. The Legislative Council is expected to discuss possible abuses in the operations of some private schools early next month, with the development of such institutions offering a formal curriculum on the agenda. According to the authority, an additional 764 day school candidates – Hong Kong students – met the general entrance requirements for admission to the city’s eight public universities this year, a 0.1 percentage point increase over 2024. “This indicates that the performance of day school candidates was not affected by the increase in the number of private candidates,” an authority spokeswoman said. She added that all 2025 Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) candidates had met the registration requirements for taking the exams. The DSE adopted standards-referenced reporting to indicate candidates’ performance and exam results, which did not involve comparing their performance with others, she said. “The earlier announcement about the rules for the 2026 DSE has further explained the application arrangements and documents needed, which will strengthen the verification and approval mechanism and enhance the efficiency in handling the applications.” The spokeswoman added that the authority would review academic qualifications and other relevant documents submitted by applicants and consider each application on a case-by-case basis for the 2026 DSE when necessary. According to the authority, the number of candidates applying through “special entry”, which mainland students normally use to enrol for the DSE exams, has been growing drastically, with 2,400 applications approved out of 2,700 received this year. About 1,400 applications were received last year. Currently, applicants who want to apply for the DSE as private candidates must have taken the previous DSE or an equivalent exam, reach the age of 19 by January 1 of the year of the exam or use “special entry” to enrol. Special entry allows those who have completed or are currently pursuing a non-DSE curriculum, such as the mainland’s gaokao or the International Baccalaureate, into Form Six as determined by the authorities in the year preceding the exams. Private secondary schools targeting mainland students by collaborating with institutions across the border have recently come under the microscope. Tsung Tsin Middle School in Cheung Sha Wan has had its operations suspended, while Inno Secondary School in Kowloon Tong has been deregistered. Some local residents have also claimed that a number of mainland students entering city universities were ineligible to sit the DSE, saying they had taken courses at tutorial centres across the border rather than attended formal schools. “The large influx of private candidates took local students’ university places, leading to some local students who had obtained the benchmark score losing their chance to study their preferred programmes,” Roger Yim, who said he was a DSE student this year, wrote in a complaint to the media and various authorities. While Yim did not respond to a request for an interview, some people went online to ask people to send the letter of complaint to the authorities. There are 15,000 first-year, first-degree publicly funded university places in Hong Kong. According to the Education Bureau, no school is allowed to collaborate with a third-party organisation to offer courses on campus and require parents or students to pay tuition fees without its approval. But a subsidised school, Mu Kuang English School in Kwun Tong, and a direct subsidy school, Caritas St Joseph Secondary School in Tsing Yi, have recently been accused of collaborating with mainland tutorial centres to offer courses for children of people admitted to Hong Kong under different talent schemes. The schools will admit the children as day school students, making it easier for them to enrol in the DSE rather than as private candidates, while offering boarding facilities to help them fulfil a two-year residency requirement to apply for subsidised undergraduate places in Hong Kong. A photo circulating online suggests Mu Kuang has launched a joint programme with a secondary school in Shanghai. It allows students to register with and study on the Mu Kuang campus while receiving after-class tutoring and university admission counselling from Shanghai Ivy School. Mu Kuang acknowledged in a statement that Shanghai Ivy was a “sister school”, but the message was distributed by an unauthorised third party. The Shanghai school had asked that such information be taken down. Meanwhile, a screenshot of the official WeChat account of mainland tutoring centre New Oriental shows it promoting a joint programme with Caritas St Joseph Secondary School. The content suggested the programme offered boarding facilities in Hong Kong and that students would study at the Tsing Yi school for two years. On Monday, both parties denied collaborating in separate statements, and no article could longer be found on New Oriental’s WeChat account. Education sector lawmaker Chu Kwok-keung said the recent sagas showed that private schools were “out of control” and that there were no clear regulations on collaborations with mainland institutions. “The Education Bureau was too lax with the management of private schools, so a lot of problems went unresolved,” he said. “The authorities should thoroughly review its regulations on private schools, especially on their management, finances, and ownership.” A spokesman for the bureau said that it had introduced the two-year residency requirement to prevent abuse.

Hong Kong DSE pupils ‘not affected by rising number of private candidates’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Exam authority’s remarks coincide with lawmakers’ calls for more stringent rules over private school-mainland institution collaboration

Exam authority’s remarks coincide with lawmakers’ calls for more stringent rules over private school-mainland institution collaboration