Honestly I'm disgusted by this banter about a situation that has no basis in fact. I am a local student studying at one of the schools mentioned in the newspaper article (ignore my username, it's kinda trollish when people realise I'm Chinese), and I have absolutely no clue what things are like in ESF schools (those 'international' schools are presumably not the subject of debate here as it seems to be focusing on the culture in traditional schools in Hong Kong), but I do know that at least where I study, there's definitely no 'pruning' going on. Since most traditional schools that do provide the IB program seem to have their own primary schools, many of the pupils have already been selected for special talents/academic capability or been trained up by the time they reach secondary education. Even if people are severely under-performing compared to their frankly elite peers, no kicking-out goes on. Unless you fail an important subject, you're golden, and if you do actually manage to fail an IB subject in an internal exam (our teachers usually say getting a 2 or 3 is harder than getting a 5), you get to take a supplementary exam to see whether you are genuinely unable to cope with the curriculum of the next academic year. Oh and if you fail that, you simply don't get promoted, but you still stay in the school. In short, schools in Hong Kong do not necessarily weed out the weaker students. On the contrary, they even cater to their needs and try to understand where their weakness are and how they can be fixed. I'm speaking from a school that is pretty well known for good results, which I think is quite indicative of how far the OP has stereotyped HK schools.