Early Admissions Scheme for Secondary Six Students

The University Grants Committee (UGC) announced today (15 January 2004) the decision to continue the Early Admissions Scheme (EAS) for Secondary Six Students for the 2004/05 academic year with an additional guideline on a quota for each programme. The three participating institutions, namely the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong have agreed closely to monitor the intake of EAS students to popular programmes and as a general rule to aim at not taking EAS students to fill more than one third of the normal UGC quota for each programme. This is to ensure that sufficient places are available for normal entry students.

"All parties concerned have been making every effort to ensure that an equitable system exists and that flexibility is retained for the Scheme. This is why we introduce this additional rule this year as mentioned above. We also hope that by continuing the Scheme, flexibility will continue to be provided for outstanding students to enter UGC-funded institutions one year earlier", Dr Alice Lam, Chairman of the UGC said.

Apart from this new guideline, a set of guidelines endorsed for use for the 2003/04 entry will also apply for 2004/05. They are set out as follows -

1. Participation in the Scheme is entirely voluntary.

2. A secondary six student will be eligible to apply under the Scheme if he/she has obtained -

   1. at least 6A's in one HKCEE sitting;

   2. Grade 'C' or above in Chinese Language (or in French or Putonghua) in HKCEE; and

   3. Grade 'C' or above in English Language (Syllabus B) in HKCEE (or Grade 'A' in Syllabus A, but this Grade A should not be counted in (i) above).

3. Participating institutions are free to draw up additional admission criteria on top of the above for individual programmes.

4. The duration of study for students admitted under the Scheme should be left to the participating institutions.

5. The Scheme should operate as a sub-system of the Joint University Programmes Admissions System.

"As we emphasized last year, we look to the institutions to put in place special arrangements to ensure that the students admitted enjoy a full university education. As a matter of fact, I am delighted to see that arrangements such as additional credit requirements, special classes, attachments and exchange programmes have been introduced for EAS students," Dr Lam emphasized.

It is expected that institutions will soon announce recruitment arrangements based on the revised guidelines.

The EAS for Secondary Six Students was first introduced by seven of the UGC-funded institutions for the 2002 entry. It was intended to run on a small scale as an exceptional scheme for exceptional students. For the 2003 entry, 411 secondary six students were admitted by three participating institutions under the Scheme.

UGC Secretariat
15 January 2004