Transcript of remarks by SED
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     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, at a media session after attending a radio programme this morning (October 31):

Reporter: There is a discrepancy of how hard the TSA (Territory-wide System Assessment) questions are perceived. Many parents are actually stressed out by the test. Do you think there's a need to evaluate how it is conveyed to schools and also the parents?

Secretary for Education: The TSA has been in operation since 2004 to begin with. We do have a lot of experience and in 2014 we actually had another review resulting in some of the changes, like no more release of individual schools' hit rate or the attainment rate in order to minimise the pressure on individual schools. These are some of the measures already taken last year. Today we understand there's a little bit of confusion relating a lot of tests of various kinds, practices or exercise books of various kinds and related that totally to TSA. There's a confusion in this particular area. That's why we need to understand TSA is TSA. There's no need for additional exercise books. Actually on the HKEAA (Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority) as well as the EDB (Education Bureau)'s websites, there're a lot of questions of those examinations for the last 11 years. You have already had enough references to make reference to. And these are for the basic competency sort of measures. It's not for any sort of outstanding or elite testing, it's not. So therefore there's actually no need for any particular push or repeated exercise or hard memory exercise for this particular regard.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Saturday, October 31, 2015
Issued at HKT 12:33

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