About 75% to 85% of Primary 3 students have reached basic competency in Chinese, English and mathematics, according to the Examinations & Assessment Authority 2004 Territory-wide System Assessment results.

Deputy Secretary for Education & Manpower Chris Wardlaw said he is pleased with the figures, which show students have a solid foundation to progress to the next stage of schooling.

"The Education & Manpower Bureau will study the results and adjust where needed the training and other learning and teaching support for schools to address areas of weakness."

Mr Wardlaw said the school-based and regional network and partnership the bureau has established with schools will help enhance constructive professional action for school improvement. The subject-specific support will also benefit from the insight drawn from the results. He appealed to schools and teachers to make good use of the assessment results through professional dialogue within school.

Data for school improvement

To ensure proper use of school-level data, the bureau has a shared understanding with all schools on a protocol that the data will be used only for school improvement purposes. Schools will keep good custody of the data to prevent unhealthy and unnecessary comparison among schools.

The Territory-wide System Assessment was conducted for the first time at Primary 3 level this year for Chinese, English and mathematics. The results serve to inform the community of the students' overall performance against the professionally defined basic competency standard in the three subjects.

The assessment will be conducted for Primary 3 and Primary 6 next year, and then at Secondary 3 in 2006. By the time the assessment is fully developed it will provide a solid baseline of standards for the community and the school sector to evaluate students' progress.