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Most Hong Kong pupils thrilled to get secondary school of choice, but for some, dismay and rush to find alternatives

  • More than 41,000 Hong Kong pupils have been allocated their first choice of secondary school by centralised system
  • Pupil Nicholas Yeung, 12, couldn’t sleep on Monday night ahead of allocation results, but he says in the end all his hard work paid off

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Students at Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road) jump for joy after collecting the allocation results. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Nicholas Yeung Chin-wang and his classmates shouted for joy when they learned they got into their secondary schools of choice in Hong Kong on Tuesday morning, saying their hard work had paid off after months of switching between campus and remote learning because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The 12-year-old pupil at Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road) said he could not sleep on Monday night.

“When I was taking the lift back to my classroom [on Tuesday morning], I started getting nervous. All my hard work paid off,” he said, adding that he spent two months to prepare for each exam.

His mother said she was “very thrilled” about his son’s result.

“There are quite a lot of uncertainties due to the pandemic, so I am very happy that he got into the first choice school,” she said.

Nicholas was among the 83 per cent, or more than 41,000 Hong Kong pupils, allocated their first choice school, up 2 percentage points from last year. Ninety-four per cent of pupils were allocated one of their top three choices for secondary schools.

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At his school, Clara Pang Hong-ching, 11, also got her first choice and was happy with the result. She had visited the book fair the previous day to relax.

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