In the first week of July, around 80,000 Hong Kong Primary 3 students sat down to undertake tests in Chinese and English languages and in Mathematics.

When considered alongside the normal happenings in schools this might not seem dramatic. Students regularly take all sorts of tests and examinations from the time they begin their school life.

However this test was different. It was part of the introduction of the Basic Competency Assessment Program recommended by the Education Commission Report in September 2000.

And because it was different there has been intensive discussion and interest about it in the education sector and broader community.

Hong Kong comes very late to this type of assessment program. System-wide assessments, based on expected learning outcomes, have been embedded in many education systems across the world over the past 15 years.

This later start in Hong Kong however can be turned to our advantage as we build on learning from elsewhere and develop an approach suitable to our context.

Assessment differs from tests, exams

In what ways is the Basic Competency Assessment different from other tests and examinations?

The actual assessment students sat in July is only one part of a bigger approach to build a better picture of what our students know and are able to do, their competency, particularly in the foundation areas of languages and mathematics.

The community of Hong Kong needs to know "whether or not students are learning", or "to what extent students have learned what they were meant to learn".

Over time we need to be able to map the learning improvements we would anticipate to result from good teaching in our schools.

Students can achieve higher levels of learning

There is near consensus among educators across the world that nearly all students, given adequate time and support, can achieve higher levels of learning.

The Basic Competency Assessment has set out standards we would expect our students to be able to achieve at each key stage of basic education (Primary 3, Primary 6 and Secondary 3).

Teachers and other subject experts have used their professional judgement to set out these expected basic competencies.

Students who cannot, for whatever reasons, demonstrate these defined capabilities, will find it increasingly difficult to engage successfully in their future learning.

The Basic Competency Assessment is a quality assurance assessment program that will assist our schools and teachers to ensure all our students are learning to their potential.

The Basic Competency Assessment  then, represents a shift in focus from "test and examination instruments" which generally establish where students stand in relation to each other, towards a "framework of assessment which will establish where students and groups of students are in their learning", measured against a set of expected learning outcomes.

Often we use the term high or low-stakes to describe a particular assessment approach. The Basic Competency Assessment has been designed deliberately to be as low stakes as possible for students.

The assessment has two components. The Student Assessment part is a computer-aided service to provide teachers with an additional resource that may help identify learning needs of individual students in the three subjects of Chinese, English and Mathematics.

Timely resource for teachers

The decision on when, how and for whom to use the Student Assessment service rests entirely with teachers because we trust that only by empowering teachers with resources and deferring to their professionalism can they provide timely assistance to their students.

The System Assessment part is a pencil and paper assessment (supported by oral language assessments) reporting at the territory-wide and school levels of achievement in the three subjects, but not at the individual student level. No individual student results are reported.

To what extent have we achieved our purposes? The student assessment has been introduced in primary schools over the past 18 months and is currently on trial in secondary schools.

Teachers provide positive feedback

We expect more teachers will increasingly use the web-based tasks as a normal part of their teaching program. Those teachers who have used it have provided positive feedback.

We need to articulate the best conditions for implementation which will increase its uptake and value to students.

Assessment elicits mixed feelings

The introduction of the System Assessment in 2004 at Primary 3 however, has elicited more mixed feelings.

This has occurred despite our best efforts in sending messages to the community that its purpose is not for the allocation of secondary school places, nor for consolidation of schools.

School-level performance will remain confidential to the school, subject to strict protocols agreed between the Education & Manpower Bureau and schools.

Schools unnecessarily burdened students

I was not surprised to see schools seriously prepare for the assessment because schools naturally want to aim high. Nevertheless I was troubled by the extent to which some schools unnecessarily burdened themselves and their students.

In some extreme instances students were requested to go back to their schools during holidays to undertake practice exercises and teachers assigned additional exercises as homework.

It is not a bad thing if this action helps students consolidate what they have learned, but I expect in some instances the exercises were assigned mechanically, and occasionally to excess.

Assessment is a support tool

The best way teachers and schools can prepare for the system assessment is to focus on using the best teaching pedagogy, including formative assessment in all classrooms, consistently using the framework of basic competencies which underpin the assessment program.

This suggests also that we should not over-claim for the benefits of the assessment. It is a support to teachers and schools.

It cannot replace the intensive, year-long support for student learning and assessment of student progress which occurs in our schools.

We have much to reflect on from the experience of this year's exercise which can be used to seek improvement.

We are confident that once schools have feedback on the learning of their students as a group, together with the support the bureau will provide to assist in interpretation of the assessment data and how it can be used to improve teaching and learning, our teachers and schools will increasingly value the Basic Competency Assessment.

My own experience in Australia, and other lessons from around the world, indicate that we cannot under-estimate the need to work very hard to ensure the benefits of this sort of assessment are fully realised.

But it has been made clear to us in feedback from a range of sources that there is an element of mistrust about the purposes of the System Basic Competency Assessment and many parents, teachers and school leaders are unsure of the benefits.

Time needed to appreciate feedback, benefits

All these concerns are understandable, and it is our responsibility to repeat our messages clearly, carry through our commitments in full, and take on board genuine concerns from school heads, teachers and parents and try our best to accommodate and allay those concerns.

We need time to appreciate what quality feedback and benefits the System Assessment may bring to us.

We are already lining up professional workshops and a school support strategy in anticipation of the findings we will get from this year's exercise.

We also need to ensure the assessment is as contemporary as possible and that we actually measure what is worthwhile for our students and our schools in Hong Kong at this time.

Continuous improvement means we must ask ourselves whether the assessment program assists our understanding of where the learner is at - their strengths, weaknesses, interests, incomplete understandings and motivations.

Assessment supports learning. The Basic Competency Assessment at both student and system level can only succeed if parents, teachers and schools join hands to honestly and actively seek feedback on student learning and use that feedback to improve the ways we support learning.