Primary 3 TSA 5B Sam Ko
Dear Editor,
I am writing to express my opinions on scrapping the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) on Primary 3. Despite the urging calls for scrapping the assessment, from my point of view, it would be a wiser decision for the government to preserve the examination with careful amendments in order to retain its benefits to the schools, students, and the education system while eliminating its defects.
The TSA consists of three major subjects, Chinese Language, English Language and Mathematics. Students would complete papers which involve different forms of test such as reading, writing, listening, etc, and a general report of the passing percentage of each paper would be distributed to each school subsequently.
To the schools, as the P.3 TSA tests the students who have already received 3 years of compulsory education of a particular school, the performance report will show an objective review on the appropriateness of the schools’ current teaching approach or direction among the students of that particular year. The review, thus, can ensure crucial mistakes are identified and necessary corrections can be made as soon as possible. So, schools can continuously amend their teaching methods to enhance education efficiency and even if the current ones are flawed, sufficient time for changes is still available.
To the students, as the major subjects focused by the TSA will also be an important part in students’ future study, i.e. the HKDSE. The early review can provide a reliable analysis about whether students are handling those pillar subjects well. If the review exposes any dissatisfactory performance in any of the abilities tested in the TSA, the school can offer adequate help, such as supplementary classes immediately. Finally, the students’ ability in the core subjects would be secured as problems are identified before being redemption.
To the Education Bureau, the TSA result will offer the government sound data, thus an accurate perspective for the government to identify the drawbacks of current measures and improve the education policy. For example, if the general result in English Language is below standard, the government can launch suitable measures like providing subsidy to schools for hiring NET teachers to boost the result. The primary 3 TSA allows the Education Bureau to refine the education policy as early as possible to prevent fatal mistakes.
Although P.3 TSA brings different parties appealing benefits, some argue that TSA leads to endless drilling and put pressure on schools as rumours suggest that the dissatisfactory result in TSA may lead to the closure of a school.
However, these arguments cannot justify the necessity of removing such beneficial system as the system itself is not the root cause of the problems suggested.
For the concerns for over-drilling, the root cause is the pressure from schools and parents who believe that the imperfect passing rate will lead to the miserable fate of the school or their children. Therefore, they force innocent students to do tons of TSA practice paper days and nights. Finally, the students end up feeling stressed and suffocated by the everlasting drilling. Ironically, the two often blame the Education Bureau for the so-called poorly arranged TSA as the root of the tremendous stress.
This is really a misunderstanding as the Education Bureau has repeatedly emphasized the fact that the result of TSA solely serves as a reference for making improvements instead of a measurement of a school’s or a student’s fate. It shows that the accusation made by schools and parents are actually their own imagination and suspicion. Then why such a beneficial system has to be scrapped because of some overthought ideas.
Also, another argument against the P.3 TSA is the difficulty of the paper. Schools and parents complain about over-complicatedness of the paper is too demanding for average P.3 students. They also complain that the hardness of the paper forces schools to drill students in order to make sure that they are able to answer the questions. For example, the Maths paper asks questions about directions which are even too advanced and confusing for adults. Therefore, the Education Bureau should revise the test paper every year to make sure the papers are not too difficult but a bit challenging for P.3 students in order to provide a fair measurement on student’s education standard and avoid the dire effect of drilling.
Moreover, other than the amendments should be made by the government, the schools have their role in the betterment of the system. They must get rid of the misconceptions about the fate-judging function of the TSA. Only when the misconception is clarified, will the schools stop drilling and inserting enormous stress on their students. At the same time, schools should also arrange regular practice for students to get them familiar with the exam format in order to make sure the performance collected in the TSA would be objective enough.
Lastly, parents should also take their steps. They should never take TSA too seriously under the rumours and drill their kids to be exam robots, but encourage them positively. For example, they should teach them when they face difficulties in homework and show them love and care even when they do not do well in TSA or exams.
To conclude, it is necessary to keep the P.3 TSA for the purpose of early potential mistakes identification. And the arguments against it would not justify the view of scrapping it and problems suggested would be recovered by efforts from the Education Bureau, schools, and parents. It is a must for the TSA system to be perfected with the joint efforts.
Yours faithfully,
Chris Wong