January 30, 2007

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"F" for maths

The SCMP's front page screams 'F' for HK students in English proficiency stakes...

More than two in four Hong Kong Chinese students granted permanent residency in Australia after graduating from its universities last year did not have competent English language skills, research released yesterday shows.

Data collated from immigration tests carried out when the graduates applied for permanent residency visas showed 42.9 per cent of the Hong Kong students failed the language competency tests, only slightly better than the 43.2 per cent from the mainland who failed it.

Recent maths studies have shown that a proportion of "more than two in four" is above 50%, whereas 42.9% is actually "more than two in five" but significantly less than "two in four". "Two in four" is also handily written as "one in two".

This is Hong Kong's alleged paper of record.

posted by Simon on 01.30.07 at 09:23 AM in the SCMP category.




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Comments:

Sounds like they need to work on their Maths as well as their English! I'm here in Australia and my girlfriend is an International student from mainland China. As I work as a professional creative writer I've been able to help her with her English-It's improved dramatically. I've met many of her friends and have done tutoring with Chinese, Hong Kong-Cantonese, and Japanese students. I find that most Chinese students here don't speak English very well...Japanese are usually better-but it's not always the case.

It seems to come down to individuals-previous learning experience at home, whether or not they mix with Aussie people or just hang out with their own nationalities, and how motivated they are/how much they practice. Of course some would say that intelligence has something to do with it-but this comes down to individuals as well. Strange people who believe that different races/cultures have different levels of intelligence rate Chinese up at the top...

I think socio-economic background plays a part as well. I know of instances here where rich kids here pay poorer student to do their assignments for them. If yu've grown up with a lot of money around you either end up lazy, or you realise that it was hard work (hopefully) that got your parents to that level of wealth-thus, you emulate them by doing your best. What do you think?

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