Page 15 - Annual Report 2018/19

Giving assurance for our work is, of course,
the Legislative Council’s approval of the
non-recurrent four-year funding commitment
of HK$360.8 million in support of our
operations until 2021/22. Apart from enabling
us to make proactive plans for the benefit of
the community, the funding arrangement also
enhanced our capacity to push ahead with
initiatives vital for advancing our work in
assessment for learning.
An Inclusive HKDSE
One area where we saw increased impact is
the rising number of candidates with special
educational needs (SEN) given special examination
arrangements (SEAs). The 2019 examination
year saw an about 5% increase in the number
of applications for SEAs over the year before.
Measures were taken to handle the increasing
number of special question papers tailored
to the needs of SEN candidates. The
‘speech-to-text’ (STT) software was another
useful tool for those taking the examination of
the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary
Education Examination (HKDSE) core
subject of Liberal Studies, sparing them the
difficulty of writing out answers. Based on the
results of research on the impact of SEAs, we
will extend this special arrangement to seven
elective subjects in the 2020 HKDSE.
Announcing results of the 2019 HKDSE at a press conference on 9 July 2019
Raising Assessment Literacy
Held in October 2018, the inaugural Research
Forum with the theme of ‘Using Assessment
Data for Better Learning and Teaching’, has
gathered together over 400 educators,
academics and researchers for insightful
discussion and exchange. We are hoping to
make the Forum a biennial event, addressing
the theme of assessment technology in the
next one with participation of both local and
overseas experts.
We are prepared to collaborate with
academics on research projects by sharing
our wealth of assessment data, and I am glad to
see that our colleagues in assessment
development and assessment technology
and research have generated more ideas
for evidence-based research by using our
own assessment data. During the year, a
number of new research studies have either
been completed or underway with the aim
of helping schools enhance learning and
teaching, including the factor analysis of
the HKDSE Chinese Language and English
Language examinations to study the relationship
among language abilities and their implications
for teaching and assessment.
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