Some parents on Wednesday said they received the same result for their children who applied for a school place through the primary one central allocation system, even though a text message was mistakenly sent a day ahead of schedule due to a system error.

According to the Education Bureau, a total of 16,345 pupils took part in this year’s primary one central allocation – about 86.2 percent, or more than 14,000 of them, were given their top three choices.

Combined with discretionary places, the overall satisfaction rate stood at 93.6 percent.

Some parents, including a man surnamed Chung, decided to go door-knocking at their preferred school even though his daughter was allocated the top choice in the school net they live, consistent with the text message mistakenly sent earlier.

He said the text message that the bureau sent out a day ago did not affect his plan at all.

“When I got the text message, I was shocked. But the Education Bureau sent another message to tell us to disregard it," Chung said.

"But it didn't make a difference to my plans because I had already planned to go door-knocking at another school net."

A mother surnamed Choi said she decided to try her luck by door-knocking, after her child was allocated their fifth choice of school — the same result as communicated by a text message she received a day ago, which was dated erroneously.

That message, sent out on Tuesday, stated the year as 2025, while the one released on Wednesday was dated 2026.

"I was mentally prepared, as I expected the result to be the same," she said.

"Getting the result a day earlier – or a day later – made no difference to my preparatory work, as I had prepared in advance."

Polly Chan, principal of Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road), said only a few parents contacted her school earlier over the text message (SMS) error.

“Just a few families asked about the earlier SMS notification. They wanted to know whether the result was [an] official confirmation or just a false message,” she said.

“I don’t think we have any chaos and confusion on the ground because our frontline staff were well-prepared.”

She added the school had a quota of 10 to 13 spots for door-knocking parents, meaning that about 30 pupils will compete for a place.

The bureau reminded parents to register their child with the school allocated during school hours on June 9 or 10.

“If they are unable to complete the registration procedures on the above dates due to important matters, they should contact the person-in-charge of registration at the school allocated in advance to make alternative arrangements. Otherwise, they will be considered to have given up the school place allocated,” a spokesman added.


Edited by Tony Sabine