No more Cat 1 and Cat 2 for ESF admission!

WYmom

回復 NoahArk 的帖子

Agree with you.  It is true that if parents do not speak English or are not good in English, it is difficult to communicate with the school well and help the children effectively through their school lives.  

sschiu

原帖由 WYmom 於 13-02-06 發表
回復 NoahArk 的帖子

Agree with you.  It is true that if parents do not speak English or are not goo ...

That's the whole point!!

Choisumwong

回復 NoahArk 的帖子

My experience in ESF for the past few years is that many parents' English are so poor that they actually ask to speak Cantonese to communicate with teachers and school staff when they participate in school meeting and activity days.
When school teachers ask parents to give talks to students, I remember I was the only one across the whole year to give talk to students !
I think ESF has strong ground to adopt new policy that teaching is more effective and realistic with parents' participation.

do123alex

Choisumwong 發表於 13-2-7 20:45
回復 NoahArk 的帖子

Not totally agree.  
I see most ESF parents are good in English speaking and the local parents are active class parent volunteers.   

fongchanchow

對英基管理作風以失望！

sweetheartb

poohpoohmouse 發表於 13-2-6 14:00
Frankly speaking, I think what ESF is doing is to reinforce the cat 1/2 system rather than abolishin ...

200% agree with your statements!

konimama

原帖由 fongchanchow 於 13-02-07 發表
對英基管理作風以失望！

Very true!!!
Very messy administration, I hv no idea why most of those admin staffs are not in standard.

ringoy

原帖由 konimama 於 13-02-05 發表
I hv attended the interview which is in SJS. They are the first school to interview both parents sta ...

Agree

Shrimpiggy

in fact we are quite satisfied with their arrangement as the letters from Kjs, RC and esf kg ty are well prepared without any ambiguity and the answer from as admin offices are promptly within one day.

umom

If you watch the 鏗鏘集 - 國際學校 誰讀 aired in Feb2012, the CEO of ESF already talked about abolishing the CAT 1 and CAT 2 system and to focus on assessing the English language proficiency of the interviewed kids.

ESF schools being the IB schools, it's indeed important that their students are able to us the language to benefit from the IB system, which emphasises a lot on inquiry, lots of verbal intractions in the classroom... unlike the other systems, such as the local systems as I assume, students are expected to absorb knowledge "given" or passed on from the teachers, from the books and all that. If the students of ESF can't use English language at a certain required level to cope with the IB system right from the beginning, ultimately it's the student him/herself who's suffering, and in worse case, with parents who aren't capable of helping them much in this aspect.

I think ESF is sending out a very clear message that if you want your kids to be admitted to the ESF schools, please get started right from th very beginning to train them in using the language, and not trying to take away their right to learn Cantonese and thought not speaking cantonese means they will speak English fluently.

jolalee

umom 發表於 13-2-10 16:07
If you watch the 鏗鏘集 - 國際學校 誰讀 aired in Feb2012, the CEO of ESF already talked about abolis ...

You are absolutely correct, umom. I learned from early childhood education experts that communicating to young children in their mother tongue is vital to their ability to have deep inner thoughts as they grow older. Although my spoken English is near native (living abroard since primary age), I would never totally give up speaking to my child in Cantonese. In fact, I was about to give up ESF because of their 'discrimination' against Canto.
I think the CAT 1&2 system is outdated, applicable only in the old days, when families in hk were fluent in one language only; very black & white. Nowadays ethnic Chinese comes in 50 shades of grey when it comes to language ability, and I'm glad they're willing to take the time to find out who are the real English speakers.

birdbird

From my understanding of the past, Cat 1 and Cat 2 is to distinguish kids who can take local education from others who cannot. Say, for a Japanese / Korean kid whose parents fly from their home country to hk to work, these kids should be classified as Cat 1 and should be given a higher priority to attend ESF as long as they can listen or express themselves in simple english. for the local chinese, whose children can speak both cantonese and english, they have a wider choice of schools including those primary schools using chinese as the teaching medium. Same apply to those who have foreign passports but parents are still local chinese. Putting these kids into Cat 2 is reasonable as ESF is not their only door for education. The only problem is that some monster parents train their kids to speak english only and claim their kids are cat 1. (How come a local chinese kid with chinese parents cannot speak cantonese? weird and ridiculous!) The parents allege that the cat 1 and cat 2 classification is not fair to them but actually, they are playing tricks instead of a fair game.

In my opinion, Cat 1 and Cat 2 system is a fairer system to kids and parents. The screening system, of which the ultimate goal is to screen out kids who cannot listen or express themselves in simple english, is more reasonable for a 4-yr old kid than those interviews offered by the local primary schools which are to pick the outstanding kids. When there are no more Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification, i can see that there will be more and more monster parents training their kids to be professional interviewees. This is not what a normal education system should be but parents of Hong Kong always make weird things happen.

Shrimpiggy

I believe ESF teachers are professional enough to pick the right children!

PoohsBaby

回復 birdbird 的帖子

"In my opinion, Cat 1 and Cat 2 system is a fairer system to kids and parents."回復 birdbird 的帖子

Why do you think it is a fair system??? The Government is using Taxpayers money to subsidize expatriates / foreign nationals kid's schooling in HK.   This ESF subvention is by no means fair to HK residents.   We get labelled as CAT 2 because our surname is chinese .... ! ESF is getting plenty of money from the Government to pay for these people.   There are plenty of IS around for them.

"This is not what a normal education system should be but parents of Hong Kong always make weird things happen."回復 birdbird 的帖子

HK parents are just fighting for their rights.   Why is it not normal?   If the system is flawed and outdated, do something about it!!!

birdbird

PoohsBaby 發表於 13-2-14 23:27
Why do you think it is a fair system??? The Government is using Taxpayers money to subsidize expatriates / foreign nationals kid's schooling in HK.   This ESF subvention is by no means fair to HK residents.

Local chinese are tax payers but it doesn't mean that expatriates working in Hong Kong do not need to pay tax to the HKSAR Government.

ESF is under government's subvention, so its admission policy should be fair to tax payers. 'Fair' does not simply mean giving everybody the same thing.  It should take into account the circumstances. Kids of local chinese families obviously have a wider choice of education. However, some of we local chinese pick ESF because of its curricumlum, culture and comparatively lower tuition fees than other international schools. For expatriate children who do not know any chinese, they certainly have fewer chocies. The establishment of ESF was originally aimed at providing affordable education to these children. It is reasonable that priority is given to these children under such circumstance. That's why I consider Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification is fairer from a broad perspective.

Right now, the Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification system is cancelled. Together with this, the targets of the ESF has been changed - to provide education to children who who can be benefited with English teaching medium. It is against the original purpose of the establishment of ESF. How about those children whose mother tongue is french or Japanese or korean while they also know English? I think the ESF owes an explanation to the LegCo with its change of its target while still getting the subvention.


Regarding the interview process, ESF has been adopting a non-selective approach. The interview is to screen out those who cannot understand or express themselves in simple English instead of picking clever kids.  If the interview approch is to pick clever students or students who can speak fluent english, do we still agree that our kids should be deprived of the rights to attend school just because they are not smart enough or cannot talk in perfect english at the age of 4? I feel sad if the ESF interview becomes another cruel battlefield for our small kids in the same way as most local schools are now running.

Finally, without the Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification, some local chinese think that we are given a higher chance to get in. Without clear selection criteria, we can never a have a good guess of the chance of our kids to get a place.

davidgorman

Hedgies 發表於 13-2-5 14:12
回復 konimama 的帖子

Thanks!  Does this mean that I need to attend the parent interview too?? If so, this would seem a bit strange as my other kid is already studying there..

The new policy will not affect you. Therefore, you don't need to attend the parent interview.

Below is the very first part taken from the letter, for your quick reference.

"To: All Parents of ESF International Kindergartens

Dear Parent,

ESF announces new admissions policy

I am writing to you about ESF’s new admissions policy which will be effective from August 2013 for entry into ESF schools* in August 2014. This applies only to students new to the ESF system and will not affect any current kindergarten students, siblings of current ESF students and students who are going from ESF’s primary Year 6 to secondary Year 7. Subject to maintaining the policy on priority groups, applicants who are currently on the wait list will not be affected and their standing in the queue will be preserved until their wait list status expires.  ..."

You will follow the old policy inspired by the following statements taken from ESF website, which is still able to be found in http://www.esf.edu.hk/our-schools today.

"ESF schools receive a subsidy from the Hong Kong Government to provide an education for English speaking children who can not access the local system. Our schools are not selective: admission depends above all on the student's ability to benefit from an ESF education.

..."

For children who cannot access the local system and / or in your case,
1. The focus is always on your child only, not the parent.
2. ESF schools are not selective. As long as your child can understand and speak simple English, they will take him / her.
3. ESF is not a school specialized to further improve student's English skill. Therefore, children with native / fluent English is not required. In fact, English is nothing more than a medium for communication in ESF.