The objective of fine-tuning the medium of instruction policy is to give flexibility to schools in an orderly manner to increase junior secondary students' exposure to English and minimise the labelling effect, the Education Bureau says.

In a Legislative Council paper today the bureau said the proposed fine-tuning gives schools greater autonomy in selecting the appropriate medium of instruction with regard to students' learning ability, teachers' capability and the requirements of individual subjects.

Possible options

According to the bureau's proposed options, schools can increase the percentage of total lesson time allowed for English-medium extended teaching activities from the original 15%, 20% and 25% for Secondary 1, 2 and 3 to a maximum of 25% for each of the junior secondary levels.

If a school has admitted to a class a critical mass of S1 students who have the ability to learn all subjects in English (i.e. students belonging to the top-40% group), it can enjoy flexibility in deciding the medium of instruction for that class.

For students who are not studying in the classes which enjoy flexibility in deciding the medium of instruction, the bureau will consider allowing the schools concerned to adopt English as the medium of instruction for individual subjects within a certain limit.

However, the bureau needs to examine in detail the lesson time and nature of the subjects concerned and form a credible quality assurance mechanism to ensure the effective learning of such subjects.

Diversified arrangements

According to the current direction of fine-tuning the medium of instruction arrangements will be diversified, the bureau said.

With the diversification of medium of instruction arrangements, the Government needs to consider conducting a longitudinal study to analyse the effectiveness of and collect data on different teaching modes.

Such a study will support future review of the policy and the dissemination of good teaching modes and strategies to schools.