Date: May 31, 2002 at 12:53:45
: It is proposed that there will be a change in S4/S5 and AL Bio curriculum from 2004 onwards. Is it necessary for this change when our Chief Executive Officer suggested there should be a change from '4 to 3' in education system. There have been queries why some of the existing examination subjects are still being revised, as a new 3-year senior secondary curriculum will be proposed soon. S4-5 Biology and AL Biology are not the only subjects that undergo changes. The reasons or rationale behind are provided as follows: 1. The earliest possible year of implementing the new secondary 4 (SS1) for the new 3-year programme is still unknown, though there are speculations that the earliest possbile year may be 2007, meaning that the earliest first examination of a 3-year senior secondary curriculum is 2010. There may be a possibility that the earliest year is not 2007. It means the first year of examining a new 3-year curricula is at least 8 or more years ahead. 2. We would not revise the existing subject curricula unless there is a necessity to update some of them which were developed in the early '90s, or to change the mode of learning (to promote critical thinking, creativity, personal judgement, e.g. from over-content-based subjects. Curriculum change is done in the best interest of students. It is an on-going improvement process to prepare students for an ever-changing society. Revision of existing curricula, creation of new subjects, and deletion of obsolete subjects would be decided on a need basis. 3. We would consider the EC Working Group's time-table of implementing the 3-year senior secondary curriculum when it is anticipated to be released in late 2002, and make sure that there is no unnecessary frequent change which would overburden teachers. 4. Any revision/change will be made in line with the directions of Learning to Learn, the latest framework, and design in a way that it would be adapted easily from a 2-year programme to a 3-year programme by raising the academic level required (i.e. to build on the core and extension of the revised S4-5 curriculum so that it can reach a level intermediate between the AL and CE level). It actually will prepare teachers for more gradual change during the interim instead of bringing about a drastic change to them. In fact if you look at the revised curricula we have put much more emphasis on the learning and teaching strategies (plus expected learning outcomes in the AL Biology). We have added some topics which are more related to our everyday life and more updated (e.g. applied genetics), and with a more emphasis on our local envrionment. Of course we deleted some topics whihc might be outdated or requires only rote learning, or those that have already been covered in the S1-3 Science. I do welcome teachres and students of Biology to share with me your ideas. P T CHAN
From: CHAN Pui-tin
In Reply to: Bio curriculum change posted by SCLam on May 30, 2002 at 08:52:01:
Senior Curriculum Development Officer (Science)
Education Department
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