Following is a question by the Hon Tang Fei and a written reply by the Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, in the Legislative Council today (July 8):

Question:

     There are views that the Education Bureau has in recent years been committed to promoting the electronic delivery of education services, with a view to providing greater convenience to parents and enhancing administrative efficiency, and that this policy direction is commendable. However, the results of the Central Allocation for Primary One Admission, originally scheduled to be announced by the Bureau on June 3 this year, were erroneously sent out ahead of schedule on June 2 due to an operational deviation in the system's sending procedure. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(1) whether it has compiled statistics on the total number of students whose allocation information was involved in the above incident of erroneous SMS release, with a breakdown by school net or district on the number of affected cases;

(2) given that the authorities have indicated that the crisis management team set up to follow up on the aforesaid incident will conduct a comprehensive review of the systems, procedures and manpower co-ordination, of the current progress and findings of the review, including whether the specific causes of the erroneous SMS release have been analysed; and

(3) how the authorities will draw on the experience gained from this contingency response to enhance departmental capability in responding to similar incidents, and how the authorities will improve the communication mechanism when implementing various electronic notification services in the future, so as to ensure that frontline staff operate the relevant systems or services correctly?

Reply:

President,

     The Government has launched various e-services for the convenience of members of the public to promote wider application of digital technology in daily life. To facilitate access to information on Primary One school places allocation, the Education Bureau (EDB) informs parents of the results of the Central Allocation (CA) for Primary One Admission (POA) through a variety of channels, including short message service (SMS). The SMS messages regarding the CA results for POA, which were originally scheduled to be released on June 3 this year, were erroneously sent out early on June 2. The EDB is highly concerned about the incident and has immediately set up an investigation team to conduct a thorough investigation with a view to clarifying the details of the incident, including whether negligence was involved. The investigation team also comprehensively reviewed the system operation, procedural arrangements and manpower deployment of the related work, so as to further enhance the information dissemination mechanism and supervision processes, to prevent similar incidents from recurring. The Government has completed the investigation of the incident and announced the investigation results as well as related follow-up actions and enhancement measures on June 26, 2026. The consolidated reply to the question raised by the Hon Tang Fei is as follows:

     The investigation revealed that the incident primarily involved an EDB officer, who on June 2, 2026, made an operational error while setting up the SMS sending procedure through the system platform. This resulted in SMS messages containing incorrect year and registration date, which were sent to about 16 000 parents one day earlier than the announcement date originally scheduled. As the above message delivery procedure is for notifying parents who have registered to receive SMS messages of their children's CA results for POA, statistics on the number of affected cases by school net or district are not available in the system. The investigation also found that another EDB officer had not established sufficient review and approval measures in the workflow.

     Immediately after the incident, the EDB activated the contingency response mechanism, including sending corrective SMS messages, issuing a press release and providing the public with clarification, as well as setting up dedicated telephone hotlines for answering parents' enquiries. The EDB also met with the school sector and parent representatives on the same day to understand their concerns about the incident. In addition, an immediate and comprehensive review of the allocation information of all students taking part in the CA for POA was conducted and it was confirmed that the incident had not affected the allocation results. Besides, upon a thorough check by the technical team, it was confirmed that the relevant information systems had not been subject to any cyberattack or hacker intrusion. The core database remained intact while the personal data of parents and students were highly encrypted and protected. The official CA results for POA were released on June 3, 2026, as originally scheduled.

     The EDB has taken relevant follow-up actions against the deficiencies and inadequacies of the staff members concerned according to the investigation results. Meanwhile, the investigation team was of the view that in addition to negligence, the incident also showed areas for improvement in the current workflow and internal supervision mechanisms. After a comprehensive review of related workflows, system design and staff arrangements, etc, the investigation team recommended a series of enhancement measures to prevent similar incidents from recurring:

(i) Compiling clear internal working guidelines outlining the workflow, division of duties and responsibilities, and approval arrangements for sending SMS messages with regular reviews and updates;

​(ii) Establishing a multi-tier review and approval procedure in the message dissemination mechanism. The delivery task can only be activated after confirmation by staff from multiple tiers, and changes after task confirmation will be restricted; and

(iii) Conducting practical drills before large-scale SMS dissemination, and continuing to hold regular briefings and training sessions on system operation, with a view to enhancing staff members' understanding of the workflow and the dissemination system, as well as improving their responsiveness and risk awareness.

     The School Places Allocation Section of the EDB has immediately implemented the above enhancement measures. Other sections will also enhance processes involving dissemination of information to the public and staff training with reference to the above principles to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the relevant information.

Ends/Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Issued at HKT 12:00

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