Editorial | Rebound in Hong Kong pupils’ English proficiency is encouraging
Record high scores a sign of teachers’ enhanced post-pandemic support and bode well for the city’s competitiveness
A case in point is the proficiency in English of Primary Three pupils. They scored a record high of 83.2 per cent in the basic competency rate, up from 78.7 last year. English proficiency for Primary Six and Form Three pupils also improved. It was the highest passing rate for Primary Three since the test began in 2004.
It was also the first time the pass rate for English outperformed that for Chinese in any student group, with 81.4 per cent of Primary Three pupils achieving basic competency in Chinese this year, an increase of half a percentage point from last year.
Primary school principal Chu Wai-lam, who is also chairman of the New Territories School Heads Association, said the improved performance could have resulted from schools adjusting their teaching and enhancing support for students after the pandemic. He said schools were also likely to have stepped up preparations for the assessment. “With their linguistic foundation consolidated, I infer that their strong performance will persist into senior years,” he said.
Conducted annually by the government, the assessment measures the proficiency of Primary Three, Primary Six and Form Three students in Chinese, English and maths, based on a sample of about 10 per cent of pupils at each level. The Education Bureau said the data this year remained generally steady and similar to the results of the previous assessments.
Under “one country, two systems”, English is an official language of Hong Kong alongside Chinese, according to the Basic Law.