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Following is a question by the Hon Ma Fung-kwok and a written reply by the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, in the Legislative Council today (April 17):
Question:
According to the reports of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, among the 5 399 Secondary Five students who studied the Visual Arts (VA) subject under the New Senior Secondary Academic Structure (NSSAS) in the 2010-2011 school year, only 4 393 continued to study the subject when they were promoted to Secondary Six, representing a reduction of 18.6%. In addition, the number of candidates who sat for the VA subject in the first Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination in 2012 was 4 425, which was much less than those of candidates sitting for the VA subject in the former Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (9 512 candidates in 2000, and around 6 500 to 6 800 candidates in each year from 2008 to 2010). Besides, it has been reported that a survey conducted earlier by the Visual Arts Education Concern Core Group indicates that only 10% of the VA teachers interviewed concurred with the VA subject curriculum under NSSAS, and the teachers interviewed generally considered that the marking scheme of the HKDSE Examination was too stringent. Only 53.5% of the candidates obtained the results of Level 3 or above in the VA subject in the first HKDSE Examination, while in each year from 2009 to 2011, an average of 93.9% of the candidates obtained the results of comparable level at Grade E or above in that subject in the Hong Kong Advanced Level (HKAL) Examination. On the other hand, only a small number of tertiary institutions offering art or related undergraduate programmes have specified in their admission requirements for such programmes that students who have obtained specified results in the VA subject in the HKDSE Examination will be accorded priority. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the respective numbers of Secondary Four, Five and Six students taking the VA subject in the 2012-2013 school year;
(b) whether the Government has examined the reasons for the drop in the number of candidates sitting for the VA subject in the HKDSE Examination and why quite a number of students dropped the subject in the course of their study; if so, of the details, whether such phenomenon was related to the curriculum design, examination assessment criteria or the results of the candidates sitting for the first HKDSE Examination, and which factor had a greater impact;
(c) whether the authorities have examined the reasons why the percentage of candidates obtaining Level 3 or above in the VA subject in the HKDSE Examination is lower than those of the candidates obtaining Grade E or above in the VA subject in the HKAL Examination, and whether such a situation is related to the curriculum design and examination assessment criteria of the subject; whether the authorities will consider taking measures to make such percentages comparable; if they will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(d) whether the authorities have assessed the impact of the drop in the number of students for the VA subject under NSSAS on the frontline teachers of arts education and on those schools which offer such programmes, and whether they have drawn up measures to tackle this problem; whether they have assessed the impacts of this problem on Hong Kong's art education as well as nurturing of talents in creative arts, and of the Government's measures to tackle the problem;
(e) whether the Government has studied the reasons for the low recognition for the curriculum of the VA subject under NSSAS among the teachers of the subject; if so, of the details and the improvement measures to be taken by the Government; of the mechanism that the Government currently has to ensure that views of frontline teachers of the VA subject on the subject can be conveyed to the authorities, and how the authorities will respond to such views;
(f) whether it knows, among the students who enrolled in the art or related undergraduate programmes offered by Hong Kong's tertiary institutions last year, the number of those students who had previously studied the VA subject under NSSAS;
(g) whether it has assessed the reasons for the relatively low recognition of HKDSE results of VA subject by the local tertiary institutions concerned, and of the improvement measures; whether it will consider suggesting the tertiary institutions concerned to accord priority to those students who have studied the VA subject, when drawing up their admission requirements for art or related programmes; if it will not, of the reasons for that; and
(h) whether the authorities have reviewed the implementation of the VA subject curriculum under NSSAS, and whether the curriculum can achieve the expected targets of the curriculum reform?
Reply:
President,
The survey mentioned by the Honourable Ma, which was conducted by the Visual Arts (VA) Education Concern Core Group in January 2013, showed that only 10% of the teachers concurred with the VA curriculum under the Senior Secondary Academic Structure. The figure merely reflected the responses of 38 schools (Note 1). As a matter of fact, the Education Bureau (EDB) and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) conducted a School Survey on New Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum and Assessment from November to December 2012, which covered all secondary schools in Hong Kong and collected responses from 482 secondary schools. Among the 345 schools that responded to questions on VA , the majority of responding teachers (65%) agreed that to develop students' knowledge and skills of art appreciation and criticism and art making, the existing curriculum framework and scope of learning should remain unchanged, subject to regular review and continuous provision of support measures for schools. Moreover, more than half of the responding teachers (54%) agreed that the structure and design of the public examination for VA should remain unchanged, subject to regular review and continuous improvement of the examination every year.
The EDB and the HKEAA have been attaching great importance to the implementation of the NSS VA curriculum and assessment, and have striven to enhance the quality of VA learning and teaching through a range of measures. We have published a variety of learning and teaching materials, case analysis on assessment and examples of teaching design. We also hold seminars and teacher sharing sessions frequently, and build professional learning communities for teachers to enrich their professional knowledge. In addition, the EDB organises student sharing sessions for senior secondary students taking the VA elective subject to help them familiarise with the curriculum requirements and enhance the learning experience through peer support. The EDB also conducts forums under the Dialogue with Celebrities Series to enhance public support for and awareness of VA education through experience-sharing by guest speakers. Staff from the EDB visits schools from time to time to ascertain the implementation of the VA curriculum, and responds to the needs identified and provides necessary support. Furthermore, we maintain close liaison with stakeholders such as school principals, university scholars and sector players as a means to gauge the views of different parties on the VA curriculum and assessment.
Our reply to the eight questions raised by the Honourable Ma is as follows:
(a) According to the Survey on NSS Subject Information for the school year of 2012-13, 6 267, 5 349 and 4 562 students at Secondary Four, Five and Six levels respectively took VA.
(b) The changes in the number of students taking NSS elective subjects are mainly attributed to a drop in the overall student population. Under the NSS curriculum, students are encouraged to explore their interests and enrich their experience in Secondary Four as far as possible. Students are therefore allowed to take more elective subjects and then decide whether to drop any of their elective subjects in Secondary Five or Six according to their own needs and abilities. As such, it is a normal development and well expected that the number/percentage of students taking elective subjects has gone down over the previous school year.
According to the Hong Kong Certificate of Education (HKCE) Examination Statistics of Entries and Results over the Years and the 2012 Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination Results (Press Release), candidates sitting for VA accounted for 6.0%, 5.7%, 5.4% and 6.1% of the total number of candidates in the three years from 2008 to 2010 and in 2012. The figures show no significant fall in the percentage of candidates sitting for VA (Note 2).
Moreover, the Surveys on NSS Subject Information for 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years indicated that the changes in the percentage of students taking VA were similar to those in the case of other elective subjects. In the 2011-12 school year, the dropout rates of various elective subjects among students when they proceeded from Secondary Five to Secondary Six ranged from 11.8% to 28.8%, while the dropout rate for VA was 18.6%, which is considered normal.
(c) VA for the HKDSE Examination and the previous Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination differ in duration of study, contents, examination requirements and number of candidates. It is not appropriate to compare the two examinations. Besides, assessment of NSS subjects is standards-referenced instead of norm-referenced. Therefore, the HKEAA does not have any pre-set ratio for the performance of candidates.
(d) According to the Surveys on NSS Subject Information for the school years from 2009-10 to 2012-13, the number of schools offering VA increased from 345 (76.2% of all secondary schools in Hong Kong) to 357 (79.5% of all secondary schools in Hong Kong), leading to a moderate growth of demand for arts teachers. As such, the EDB will continue to make vigorous efforts to provide appropriate support for teachers and students through different initiatives, such as offering professional development programmes, building professional learning communities, as well as developing a wide range of learning and teaching materials.
Moreover, different pathways are available under the NSS curriculum to promote arts education and nurture talents in creative arts. For instance, every senior secondary student is required to pursue Aesthetic Development in Other Learning Experiences. Students are free to choose from Music, Visual Arts and arts-related Applied Learning courses according to their interests and strengths. Furthermore, they can also make "arts" their theme for Independent Inquiry Study in Liberal Studies.
In fact, we can employ multi-faceted approaches to nurture talents in creative arts, not necessarily relying solely on NSS VA. Students' learning in other disciplines, such as Chinese Language, English Language, Humanities as well as Science and Technology, complements arts learning by enhancing knowledge, skills and values that are relevant to the understanding of the different aspects of cultures. There are many cross-curricular learning opportunities across Key Learning Areas and all of these enable students to investigate the arts from different perspectives and help nurture talents in creative arts effectively.
(e) According to the survey conducted by the EDB and the HKEAA in end-2012, which is mentioned in the first paragraph of our reply, the majority of responding teachers concurred with the NSS VA curriculum and its scope of learning. As a matter of fact, multi-stage and multi-level consultations had been carried out since 2003 before various NSS elective subjects were worked out, and frontline teachers and different stakeholders were engaged at each stage of consultation. Feedback from various channels was discussed before being adopted by the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) - HKEAA Committee on Visual Arts (Senior Secondary), in which teachers were represented, so as to ensure that teachers' views could be fully taken on board. Due consideration was also given to the views of different stakeholders, while having regard to the development trend and international recognition of VA, when we worked out the details of the curriculum and assessment.
(f) We do not have the figures on the number of students previously taking VA and subsequently admitted to universities to pursue studies in arts or related disciplines last year.
(g) The entrance requirements of most local universities focus on the results of the four core subjects (i.e. Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and Liberal Studies) and one to two specified/unspecified elective subjects. It is now a common thinking that reducing the number of specified elective subjects in the admission requirements of individual faculties or departments of universities will give schools flexibility in senior secondary curriculum planning, avoid immature streaming of students, and enable students to choose elective subjects according to their aptitude and interests.
Admission is a matter of autonomy for local universities, and individual faculties and departments have different criteria for admission. The EDB is not in a position to require universities to consider giving more weighting to students taking VA when drawing up their admission criteria.
VA is no different from other elective subjects in terms of status, as it is just one of the NSS elective subjects.
(h) The EDB has put in place initiatives to assess the implementation of the NSS curriculum. It has been gathering information through school visits, lesson observations, surveys, focus group meetings, interviews, forums, seminars, etc., since 2009. The EDB has also maintained close communication with stakeholders in order to be apprised of the implementation of the NSS curriculum. We are given to understand that the NSS VA curriculum has been implemented smoothly on the whole; students performed well in terms of art appreciation and criticism and art making skills, as well as generic skills (e.g. creativity, critical thinking skills and communication skills), as proven by their pleasing results in the HKDSE Examination; and most teachers have a good grasp of the assessment criteria for School-based Assessment. Overall, the implementation of the NSS VA curriculum and assessment is satisfactory.
The information and data collected by the EDB over the past few years not only facilitate our understanding of how NSS curriculum has been rolled out, but also serve as an invaluable reference for a review of the curriculum and assessment. Drawing on the experience gained so far, we will offer practicable recommendations and support to both schools and students to help them cope with the challenges during the implementation period. By so doing, we hope to address the stakeholders' concerns about the NSS curriculum and assessment in a timely manner.
Note 1: The article about VA teachers' whine about harsh grading in HKDSE Examination was published on Page A16 of Wen Wei Po on January 27, 2013.
Note 2: In the three years from 2008 to 2010, the total numbers of candidates sitting for the HKCE Examination were 109 574, 119 007 and 127 162 respectively, while the numbers of candidates taking VA were 6 525, 6 783 and 6 804 respectively. In 2012, the total number of candidates sitting for the HKDSE Examination was 73 074, while the number of candidates taking VA was 4 425.
Ends/Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Issued at HKT 14:28
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