The Education Bureau apologised on Tuesday for mistakenly sending text messages to parents who applied for a school place for their children through this year's primary one central allocation.

The bureau said the mistake was down to a system error, meaning results of the allocation were sent a day earlier than scheduled.

It called on parents to disregard the messages.

The bureau said the incident was entirely unrelated to information security or cyber‑security, and the personal data of parents and pupils is protected by strong encryption.

"After an immediate, comprehensive inspection by the technical team, it was confirmed that the system has absolutely not been subject to any cyber‑attack or hacker intrusion, and the core database remains intact," a statement said.

It added that the bureau has promptly set up a crisis‑management team to follow up on the matter and will conduct a thorough review of the system, procedures and staffing coordination.

A total of 16,345 children took part in this year's primary one central allocation. Their parents will be informed of the results from 7.30 am on June 3.

According to the bureau, more than 14,000 children were given one of their top three choices of school, with an overall satisfaction rate of 93.6 percent.



Edited by Thomas McAlinden