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| Tertiary Education: Postgraduate Study | Doctorate's |
| Master's | |
| Postgraduate Certificates (optional) | |
| Tertiary Education: Undergraduate Study* | Year 3 |
| Year 2 | |
| Year 1 | |
| (Diplomas also possible) | |
| Hong Kong Advanced-Level Education (HKALE) Secondary School / Matriculation | Upper 6 |
| Lower 6 | |
| Hong Kong Certificate of Education Exam (HKCEE) Secondary School | Form 5 |
| Form 4 | |
| Secondary School | Form 3 |
| Form 2 | |
| Form 1 | |
| Primary School | Primary 6 |
| Primary 5 | |
| Primary 4 | |
| Primary 3 | |
| Primary 2 | |
| Primary 1 | |
| Kindergarten | K1 to K3 |
| *Three years, except for some subjects, e.g. law (from 2004), medicine. |
__NOTOC__
Since the 1970s, a policy of nine-year free and eleven-year (with exceptions^) compulsory education has been launched in Hong Kong. It includes six years of primary education and first five (^or three) years of secondary education.
This is usually a non-compulsory, three year education before primary school. As the German word 'kindergarten' would suggest, there is little education going on, but serves more as a child-caring institution.
Some kindergartens employ a 'morning' and 'afternoon' class system. Students of the 'morning' class tend to receive better care and help.
Primary education in Hong Kong covers a wide curriculum. Core subjects include Chinese, English, and Mathematics. Other basic subjects include social studies, sciences (physics, chemistry and biology), and health education (or 'General Studies' which is a mixture of the aforementioned), music, physical education, and art and craft.
The teaching medium in most of the local schools is Chinese with English as a second language. 'International' schools make their teaching medium English, with some of them providing education in an alternative language as a second language. For example, the German Swiss International School makes German the second language, and the French International School, French.
A central allocation system (the Secondary School Places Allocation system) was introduced when the Academic Aptitude Test was cancelled in 2000. This is used to determine which students, who successfully completed primary school, are eligible to which secondary school. This is determined by the students' grades in three examinations (the second term in Primary Five, the first and second terms of Primary Six). The grades are then adjusted by the school's overall performance in the Academic Aptitude Test during 1997 to 1999 by a complex formula. This determines what 'band' your school is in. As schools are now divided into three bands now (2004) according to their academic standards, the top few children of each class are most likely to enter Band 1 schools, and vice versa. There has been some debate whether this 'band system' is fair or discriminatory. The courts have already gone someway to help reduce the discriminatory effect by changing the five-band system to a three-band one.
This band system also affects secondary school students wishing to enter tertiary institutions.
Note, however, that this band system does not apply to international schools.
Secondary education in Hong Kong is largely based on the the British schooling system. Secondary school starts on the seventh year of formal education (kindergarten is excluded) after Primary Six, called Form One. Students are requried by law (with some exceptions) to spend five years in secondary schools, of which the first three years (Forms One to Three) are spent on general, instead of subject-divided, education.
Form Four and Five students prepare for the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination ( HKCEE ), which takes place after Form Five (similar to the UK's GCSEs or O-levels). Students obtaining a satisfactory grade will be promoted to the Lower Sixth, who then prepare for the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examinations ( HKALE ) (similar to the UK's A-levels), which are taken after the Upper Sixth. A central allocation system for places, called the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS), determines admission to tertiary institutions, largely based on the student's HKALE (and HKCEE) results. A few students who perform exceptionally well on their HKCEEs are sometimes 'fast-tracked' straight to university, bypassing the HKALEs, although this tends to be the exception, rather than the rule, as only a handful of students meet this criteria each year.
In some schools, Lower and Upper Sixth are also called Form Six and Form Seven.
International school students rarely take Hong Kong public exams; instead, they take international public exams such as IGCSEs / A-levels, IBs, Abiturs, SATs, etc.
As of Oct 2004, there has been heated discussion on proposed changes towards the US education system, inter alia, reducing secondary education from seven to six years, as well as merging the two public exams HKCEE and HKALE into one public exam. The proposed changes will likely take effect within the next few years.
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