In November 2012, Dr Tong Chong-sze, Secretary General, Mrs Christina Lee, Acting Director - Public Examinations and a team of HKEAA assessment experts met with a panel of experts from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) to study the performance of the first HKDSE cohort and review UCAS Tariff points for level 5**.

After the completion of the recent benchmarking study by the end of 2012, the UCAS Tariff points awarded for level 5** of the HKDSE Examination are confirmed as follow:

UCAS Tariff points for 23 Category A New Senior Secondary subjects, except Mathematics:

UCAS Tariff points for Mathematics:
*The overall performance is indicated by the combined Tariff points to both parts.

The inclusion of tariff points for level 5** has further enhanced understanding of the standards and value of the HKDSE for progression to tertiary education. For details, please refer to the press release or UCAS website.

Dr Tong Chong-sze, Secretary General (first from right), Mrs Christina Lee, Acting Director - Public Examinations (first from left) and a team of HKEAA assessment experts met the UCAS expert group.

A delegation from the HKEAA and the Education Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR Government visited several renowned UK universities to bring the latest information about the results of the first HKDSE Examination in November 2012.

Headed by the newly appointed HKEAA Chairman, Mr Rock Chen Chung-nin, the delegation met admission and academic staff from University College London, King’s College London, Imperial College London, the University of Warwick, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. A lot of useful feedback on widening the acceptance of the HKDSE qualification has been collected during the visits.

The HKEAA will continue to extend recognition of the HKDSE and add international institutions that accept the qualification to our database. Currently, over 140 tertiary institutions worldwide have acknowledged their acceptance of HKDSE and provided their admission requirements on the HKEAA website. 70 Mainland higher education institutions and 149 Taiwan universities will also exempt Hong Kong students from examination for admission in 2013/14. Students can apply for admission with their HKDSE results directly. For details, please visit Recognition of Qualifications for HKDSE.

Mr Rock Chen Chung-nin (third from left), HKEAA Chairman, met with admission and academic staff of University of Cambridge.

To help students and teachers understand the standards required for the HKDSE Examination, we published the Examination Report and Question Papers (ERQP) of 24 New Senior Secondary (NSS) subjects in November 2012. The ERQP of different subjects provide the marking schemes and useful comments from examiners on candidates’ performance in the examinations.

Authentic samples of candidates’ answers at different levels of performance are now published online. All these samples are available at HKDSE Subject Information.

With the inaugural HKDSE Examination comes to a close, the HKEAA and the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) announced the conduct of a survey in November 2012 to collect feedback from schools and teachers on the implementation of the curriculum and the assessment to facilitate student learning.

Recommendations for enhancement will be announced in early 2013. Details of the survey are now available on “Review of the New Academic Structure” webpage.