With consultations on long-term reforms in secondary school places allocation and the medium of instruction ending on Saturday, parents' groups have urged the government to give them the right of choice for their children.

The Education Commission began a review of the Secondary School Places Allocation System and the medium of instruction in 2003-04 to reach a decision on the long-term mechanism to be implemented in the current school session.

The commission's working group has spent more than 18 months preparing for the consultations, but critics have said it didn't want to listen to the parents' and teachers' views.

The consultation paper's guidelines too came under fire for lacking a sound academic basis - the most controversial being the working group's support for mother tongue as the medium of instruction and its plans to separate Chinese- and English-medium schools, with the latter taking in academically stronger students.

Parents' group Coalition of Education-Concerned Parents yesterday slammed the proposal to restrict their right to choose the medium of instruction for their wards. It said the opportunities for students will become more limited if such a policy was implemented.

A spokesman for the group, Tony Wong said: "We are concerned that the medium-of-instruction reforms are actually the government's experiment, and the result would be language-deficient students."

Wong said the Education Commission had ignored the parents' views, and that it should allow them to choose the medium of instruction for their wards.

Fellow parent Maria Cheng said the proposals were misleading and based on selective data. "The commission has selectively chosen theories and research from studies, based on only two years of HKCEE data, to justify the effectiveness of instruction in mother tongue, and that was insufficient for the development of long-term policies."

Another spokesperson for the group Stephanie Chan said parents had always been a silent lot, and never had adequate channels to express their views.

"Many of us are opposed to the reform proposals, but our opinions are ignored and schools have to conform to government policies because they depend on its funding. We can see that the education system in Hong Kong is bleeding," Chan said.

Representatives of the group marched to the government offices in Central yesterday and handed over more than 10,000 postcards signed by parents to the Chief Executive's Office.

But Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union endorsed the government's preference of mother tongue as the medium of instruction in secondary schools. The union, however, said schools with the resources and experience should be allowed to have English as the medium of instruction.

A union spokesman said: "The government should respect the views of parents and cater to the specific needs and strengths of students."

(HK Edition 06/30/2005 page2)