Forum Letter Replies
Pass rates for CL are high and have been maintained
I refer to Lianhe Zaobao’s report, “Chinese mother tongue results show declining trend”, published on 21 December 2010.
Zaobao’s reporting of Ministry of Education’s (MOE) results on the Performance of Ethnic Groups for Mother Tongue Language was incomplete. This was despite MOE’s explanation that pass rates for ‘O’ level Chinese Language (CL) have been maintained as year to year fluctuations are to be expected. As reported by MOE, our pass rates for CL are already very high and have been maintained, at above 95%. Strict year to year comparisons for small percentage changes are not valid as the quality of each cohort and test papers are not identical each year.
Further, the candidature over the years has changed. For example, the introduction of the Integrated Programme removed a large bulk of the top-performing students from the ‘O’ level candidature pool since 2005. This is why MOE emphasized to Zaobao that the results show that the ‘O’ level pass rates in CL over the decade of 2000-2009 have been maintained, not declined. More importantly, there was almost a doubling of students who are also taking Higher CL at ‘O’ levels, from around 4500 students to 8500 students (or from around 17% of the 2000 cohort to 26% of the 2009 cohort of Chinese students), over the same period.
Director, Planning Division
Ministry of Education