Pupils overjoyed as 84pc of them granted top choice

Eighty-four percent of pupils applying for secondary school places were granted their top choices as the results of the selection process were unveiled on Tuesday.

The figure dropped slightly by one percentage point compared with a year ago.

Of the 48,545 applicants, 95 percent were allocated their top three choices.

A boy surnamed Law said he was overjoyed to get into his top-choice school.

“I’m so happy. I did exercises every day and went to tutorial classes. I haven’t thought of what to do next to celebrate,” he said.

When asked about his goals for the next chapter in his life, he said: “Not to get kicked out of school.”

Noelle Ng said she was really worried before knowing that she was granted her top choice, as she did not do well in one of the internal assessments.

Her parents were among those she wanted to thank the most.

“Because they have been supporting me. Even though they are not good at teaching me academic knowledge, and I have to go tutorial classes, they taught me life lessons and kept encouraging me when my results were not good,” she said emotionally.

Ng also revealed that she hopes to be on camera for her future job.

“I want to be an actress, I have been participating in shoots at RTHK, and joined a lot of emcee activities at school. So I want to be an actress or work in the field of acting.”

Another boy surnamed Ng was among those landed one of their top three schools.

“I have been working very hard. I hope I can continue to keep up with the work in my preferred school and scale new heights!” he said.

“My goal is when I get into secondary school, I will continue to work hard, and I hope to be a top scorer.”

Polly Chan, principal of Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road), said that 92.4 percent of her students were granted their top choice.

She expects up to six percent of the remaining students to go door-knocking and try their luck, but she called on parents to think twice before doing so as it could put pressure on their children.

The Education Bureau reminded parents that all students must register at their allocated schools on July 9 or 10.

Edited by Tony Sabine ...