Hoi Ping Chamber of Commerce Secondary School
Academic Affairs
Applied Learning
Applied Learning (ApL) courses are elective subjects within the senior secondary curriculum. ApL offers studies with equal emphasis on practice and theory linked to broad professional and vocational fields. A flexible combination of ApL with core subjects, elective subjects and Other Learning Experiences helps provide students with holistic learning. ApL aims to enable students to understand fundamental theories and concepts, develop their beginners’ skill set, career-related competencies and generic skills. ApL helps students explore their career aspirations and orientation for lifelong learning.
Latest information
For current S4 students, if you wish to take an Applied Learning course to replace one of your electives in S5, please check the parent letter issued on early March. The internal deadline of application is end-of-March. For enquiries, please contact Mr. Lui Fu On.
Please check the link belows for the Applied Learning courses offered in 2021/22, our parent letter and the application form:
There are six areas of studies in ApL, namely, Creative Studies; Media and Communication; Business, Management and Law; Services; Applied Science; and Engineering and Production. The duration of ApL course is 180 contact hours, generally spanning two school years. Besides, senior secondary nonChinese speaking (NCS) students fulfilling the specified circumstances1 may also choose to take Applied Learning Chinese (for non-Chinese speaking students) (ApL(C))2 to obtain an alternative Chinese language qualification to prepare them for further studies and career pursuits. There are 41 ApL courses in the 2020-22 cohort (including three ApL(C) courses) which are provided by the course providers for students to choose. Please refer to the course list for details.
ApL subjects are Category B subjects in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination. There is NO public examination for ApL subjects. The assessment of each ApL subject, comprising 6 to 10 assessment tasks undertaken over the course of study, is undertaken by course providers. The minimum attendance requirement of all ApL courses is 80% of the total contact hours.
Effective from the 2018 HKDSE Examination, the reporting of student performance in ApL courses is refined to “Attained”, “Attained with Distinction (I)” and “Attained with Distinction (II)”. Performance of “Attained with Distinction (I)” is comparable to Level 3 while “Attained with Distinction (II)” is comparable to Level 4 or above of Category A subjects of the HKDSE Examination. For ApL(C), “Attained” and “Attained with Distinction” will continue to be used. Most ApL courses are registered in the Qualifications Register as certificate programmes at Qualifications Framework (QF) Level 3; whereas ApL(C) is pegged at the QF Levels 1-3. Students will obtain QF certificate(s) issued by course providers in addition to the HKDSE qualification upon successful completion of these ApL courses.
The above information is the EDB website below. Please refer to the website for more details.
https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/cross-kla-studies/applied-learning/index.html