📋 Tender Overview
Following is a question by Dr the Hon Elvin Lee and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Education Dr Sze Chunfai in the Legislative Council today October 21
Question
It has been reported that the findings of a survey released by an organisation in August 2026 on Research on Hong Kong Childrens Subjective Wellbeing revealed that under the influence of an objective environment characterised by high competition great emphasis on academic performance and high expectations of achievement childrens subjective wellbeing is often undermined by academic burden and invisible pressure from parents and they may even use online games as a digital escape due to a lack of autonomy in real life thereby arousing public concern about the affective development of children In this connection will the Government inform this Council
1 as it is learnt that the Education Bureau has launched the Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes APASO since 2003 and has collaborated with a local university in recent years to conduct a comprehensive review and revision of APASO for schools to conduct related student questionnaire surveys anonymously so as to examine their students development and needs in the affective and social domains including their physical and mental health as well as school life and the relevant data form part of the Key Performance Measures whether the authorities have tracked and analysed the trends changes and causes in respect of students affective development in recent years and whether such trends are consistent with the findings of the aforementioned survey if so of the details if not the reasons for that
2 whether the authorities have based on the data collected through APASO made adjustments and provided support at the school level in respect of the curriculum arrangements assessment methods and learning activities in response to the trends and changes in students development in the affective domain such as adjusting examination and assessment methods as well as increasing classroom interactions and experiential learning if so of the details if not the reasons for that and
3 whether the authorities have evaluated the effectiveness of their work in coordinating schools to strengthen collaboration with parents to help parents understand childrens affective development needs and identify any invisible pressure that they may exert through channels such as parent education training or seminars if so of the details if not the reasons for that
Reply
President
The Education Bureau EDB attaches great importance to students affective development and their physical and psychological wellbeing Healthy Lifestyle has long been one of the seven learning goals of primary and secondary education Under the enhanced School Development and Accountability framework the EDB has been encouraging schools to conduct school selfevaluation SSE through the PlanningImplementationEvaluation cycle in a bid to assess the implementation and effectiveness of measures for promoting students affective development and their physical and psychological wellbeing with a view to making corresponding refinements To support schools in conducting evidencebased SSE the EDB launched the Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes APASO as an SSE tool in 2003 Through questionnaire surveys schools are able to collect data to assess students development and needs in the affective and social domains as well as the effectiveness of the related measures implemented in schools so as to inform schools planning The EDB has commissioned a tertiary institution to comprehensively review and revise APASO Subsequently the secondary and primary editions of APASO 3rd Version were launched in the 202223 and 202324 school years respectively Concurrently the norm data of APASO was also updated to provide schools with the latest territorywide information on students development in the affective and social domains for reference
Our consolidated reply to the question raised by Dr the Hon Elvin Lee is as follows
1 and 2 APASO has been in use in the school sector for many years and is widely adopted by schools As one of the SSE tools APASO has evolved to its third version Given the varying school contexts schools may make flexible use of the assessment items of APASO related to affective development according to their needs to gain a comprehensive understanding of students development and needs across different domains Since the questionnaire is completed by students on their own the data collected may be influenced by various factors such as the timing of the survey administration and response rate Therefore neither is it appropriate to assess students affective and social performance solely on the basis of APASO data nor is it appropriate to make simple comparisons between data obtained from different assessment tools In general schools currently conduct integrated analyses and exercise professional judgement by for instance comparing data among different student groups and examining changes in data across years together with other qualitative and quantitative SSE information and data such as teachers observations schoolbased questionnaires and students reflections This enables schools to gain an understanding of students development and needs including their affective development as well as physical and psychological wellbeing so as to formulate appropriate followup strategies
Students take part in the questionnaire surveys in an anonymous manner The assessment items include students physical and psychological wellbeing and their school life allowing them to express their personal experiences and perception across different domains The information collected facilitates schools annual SSE and their continuous refinements of development directions and priorities On the basis of schools SSE the EDB validates the effectiveness of schools work including overall curriculum planning assessment
