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The Education Bureau (EDB) announced today (March 26) that an extended consultation will be conducted on four subjects following the completion last month of the consultation on New Academic Structure (NAS) Medium-term Review and Beyond.
The three-month consultation was jointly launched by the EDB, the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) and completed at the end of February this year. Stakeholders' valuable comments collected through different channels including school surveys, briefing sessions and focus group interviews will inform the deliberations in the committees of the respective subjects.
The committees of four subjects (namely Mathematics, Liberal Studies, Tourism and Hospitality Studies, and Visual Arts) considered that an extended consultation is necessary to collect more feedback on some of the details regarding the recommendations for these four subjects, so that more concrete recommendations could be formulated for the medium term to benefit students at the earliest instance, and to allow time for teachers to make preparations. The key issues in the extended consultation on the four subjects are summarised as follows:
* Mathematics: to collect more detailed views on how to improve the curriculum content of the Compulsory Part and the Extended Part, and the timeline for implementation;
* Liberal Studies: to collect more detailed views on how to improve the question designs in the public examination to cater better for learner diversity, and reflect a balanced coverage of the six modules of the Liberal Studies curriculum;
* Tourism and Hospitality Studies: to collect more detailed views on incorporating the essence of the core topics of the Elective Part into the Compulsory Part; and
* Visual Arts: to collect more detailed views, including on the requirement of linkage between art appreciation and criticism and art making in the public examination, the provision of guided questions in the public examination, the need to further specify contents for the curriculum and assessment in the long term.
The extended consultation will be conducted through different means including a school survey, briefing sessions and focus group interviews to solicit further views from different stakeholders. The school survey will be conducted from March 30 to April 24.
The feedback collected from the extended consultation will be consolidated by the committees of the respective subjects to inform deliberations at the Joint CDC - HKEAA Public Examinations Board meeting. The last batch of medium-term recommendations is expected to be announced in July.
The school survey questionnaires (English versions) will be sent to schools on March 30. The public can access the questionnaires (English versions) from the designated NAS Review webpage (www.edb.gov.hk/nas/review/en) on the same day. The Chinese versions will be uploaded later. Members of the public are welcome to browse the latest information and activities of the NAS through the NAS Web Bulletin (www.edb.gov.hk/nas/en).
Ends/Thursday, March 26, 2015
Issued at HKT 19:09
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