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Equal Opportunities Commission's Response to Education Department's Decision on the Secondary School Places Allocation System (SSPA)

19/04/2000

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has received a reply from the Education Department regarding the Commission's investigation into the Secondary School Places Allocation System (SSPA) released in August, 1999. In this Report, the Commission found :
- boys and girls in the same school are treated separately - using gender curves for scaling of their Internal Assessment scores to produce the final scores for placement into secondary schools;

- boys and girls are put into two separate rank orders of academic merit in the banding process, resulting in different band cutting scores for each sex; and

- co-educational schools are required to admit a fixed proportion of boys and girls.

The Education Department, however, considers that there are strong reasons to support the existing SSPA, including separate scaling and separate banding for boys and girls, and gender quota for co-educational schools.

The reason given by the Education Department for maintaining the existing SSPA is that the policy is justifiable under section 48 of the Sex Discrimination Ordinance. This section deals with the defence of special measures, and implicit in raising this defence is the acceptance of the Commission's findings that the SSPA is discriminatory.

The EOC does not accept the Education Department's claim that due allowance for any inherent developmental differences between boys and girls amounts to the basis for the defence of special measures. This policy has been in place for more than 20 years. The Commission is disappointed that the Education Department is not taking steps to remove the discriminatory elements of the SSPA and is considering taking legal action.

Equal Opportunities Commission

19 April 2000

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CAP.480 Sex Discrimination

PART VI

General Exceptions from parts III to V

48. Special measures

Nothing in Part III, IV or V shall render unlawful an act that is reasonably intended to ---

ensure that persons of a particular sex or marital status, or who are pregnant, have equal opportunities with other persons in circumstances in relation to which a provision is made by this Ordinance;

afford persons of a particular sex or marital status, or who are pregnant, goods or access to services, facilities or opportunities to meet their special needs in relation to ---

employment, education, clubs or sport; or

the provision of premises, goods, services or facilities;

afford persons of a particular sex or marital status, or who are pregnant, grants, benefits or programmes, whether direct or indirect, to meet their special needs in relation to ---

employment, education, clubs or sport; or

the provision of premises, goods, services or facilities.

Enquiry: EOC Hotline     25118211

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