Make Teachers, Parents Part Of TSA Decision: PTU

The Professional Teachers Union (PTU) has called on the government to make sure schools consult teachers and parents before they decide whether to make all Primary Three students take part in the controversial Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) exams.

After protests by parents and teachers about the excessive pressure the tests put on children, the Education Bureau had revamped the exam and announced earlier this year that only one in 10 pupils in each school would have to sit the exams in Chinese, English and maths.

But schools were also given the choice of making all their Primary Three students take the tests.

The PTU surveyed about 500 teachers, and more than 60 percent of them said they had no opportunity to express their views as to whether they wanted all their students to take the exams.

Education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen said this is not good enough. He said schools should find out if the majority of teachers and parents favour the idea before a school decides to make all students take the TSAs.

Ip said the government should also introduce a monitoring system to make sure there really is no further excessive drilling. And, if this problem appears to persist, he said the administration should scrap the assessments altogether.