Education in Hong Kong

Small village Chinese schools were observed by the British missionaries when they arrived circa 1843.[4] Anthony Sweeting believes those small village schools existed in Chek Chue (modern-day town of Stanley), Shek Pai Wan, Heung Kong Tsai (modern-day Aberdeen) and Wong Nai Chong on Hong Kong Island, although proof is no longer available.[5]

One of the earliest schools with reliable records was Li Ying College established in 1075 in present-day New Territories.[6] By 1860 Hong Kong had 20 village schools. Chinese who were wealthy did not educate their children in Hong Kong but instead sent them to major Chinese cities, such as Canton, for traditional Chinese education.[6]

The changes came with the arrival of the British in 1841. At first, Hong Kong's education came from Protestant and Catholic missionaries who provided social services. Italian missionaries began to provide boy-only education to British and Chinese youth in 1843.[7]

In 1862 Frederick Stewart arrived in Hong Kong. His work, over a period of years, led to his being called, "The Founder of Hong Kong Education". He took up an appointment as the first headmaster of the first school to be founded and fully-funded by the Hong Kong Government, Queen's College (then named the Hong Kong Government Central School for Boys). He took a lead from various missionaries who had been active in Hong Kong education for the Chinese in the earlier post 1841 period and insisted on a bilingual and bicultural curriculum. (Half the day was spent on the Chinese language and the traditional Confucian curriculum and half the day was spent on the English language and what was then known as "useful knowledge" (i.e. western studies). [8]

One of the much-contested debates was whether schools should offer Vernacular education, teaching in Chinese.[5] Education was considered a luxury for the elite and the rich. The first school to open the floodgate of western medical practice into East Asia was the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. The London Missionary Society and Sir James Cantlie started the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1887 (although, the 'for Chinese' was later dropped from the name).[9] Also, the London Missionary Society founded Ying Wa Girls' School in 1900. Belilios Public School was a girls' secondary school founded in 1890 – the first government school in Hong Kong that provided bilingual education in English and Chinese. The push for Chinese education in a British system did not begin until the rise of social awareness of the Chinese community following the 1919 May Fourth Movement and the 1934 New Life Movement in China.[5][6] Educating the poor did not become a priority until they accounted for the majority of the population. Financial issues were addressed in the 1970s.[10]

In 1997 Keith B. Richburg of the Washington Post wrote that in the British era education was based on education in the United Kingdom, "largely apolitical", and did not emphasise topics related to politics nor civic affairs. The Governor of Hong Kong had the right to bar, under law, "the dissemination of information, or expression of opinion, of a clearly biased political nature in schools" but Richburg stated that "That law was rarely used".[11] There were attempts to repeal said law prior to 1 July 1997.[11]

In 1997, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region implemented the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC) to introduce and spread the project learning in the national primary schools. To promote the interactions of work groups or individual students in a new learning environment, professors were engaged in the role of "consultant, facilitator, helper" and posers of questions. Ten years after, the 80% of the Hong Kong's institutes had left the traditional approach to education, mainly based on teachers and textbooks, to adopt an active and experiential learning pedagogy.[12]

A small group of South Asian Hongkongers marched through Central demanding more schooling in the English language on 3 June 2007.[13]

On 2 September 2019, thousands of Hong Kong's students striked the secondary schools to join a boycott organized by the local party Demosisto against the extradition bill to China. Students formed a 650-meters human chain and six of them kneeled down in front of the St Francis' Canossian College, the mother institute of the Chief Executive Carrie Lam, to achieve the "five demands, not one less" that had originated 13 consecutive weeks of mass protests.[14]

Pre-school education in Hong Kong is not free and fees are payable by pupils' parents. However, parents whose children have the right of abode in Hong Kong can pay for part of their fees with a voucher from the government under the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS). In 2013, the amount of subsidy under the PEVS is $16,800.

Every child in Hong Kong, without any reasonable excuse, is required by law to attend a primary school after the child has attained the age of 6. It is also required to attend a secondary school after primary education and is completed before he/she attains the age of 18. However, a student who has completed Form 3 of secondary education and whose parent can produce evidence to the satisfaction of the Permanent Secretary for Education, shall not apply. Education in the public sector is free. Public primary schools admit students via the Primary One Admission System.

University of Hong Kong.

Higher education remains exclusive in Hong Kong. Fewer than 20,000 students are offered places funded by the government every year, although this number has more than doubled over the last three decades.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

As a result, many continue their studies abroad, as can be seen in the following table.[7]

Bachelor's degrees issued in Hong Kong have honours distinctions: first class, second class upper division, second class lower division, and third class.

Adult education is popular, since it gives middle age adults a chance to obtain a tertiary degree. The concept was not common several decades ago. The EMB has commissioned two non-profit school operators to provide evening courses. The operators have fee remission schemes to help adult learners in need of financial assistance. Adult education courses also provide Vocational Training Council through universities and private institutions. The Open University of Hong Kong is one establishment for mature students. Several secondary schools operate adult education sessions, the first being Cheung Sha Wan Catholic Secondary School, while PLK Vicwood KT Chong Sixth Form College offers associate degree and joint-degree programmes.

The Education Bureau provides education services for immigrant children from Mainland China and other countries, as well as non-Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong children. Free "Induction Programmes" of up to 60 hours have been offered to NAC by non-government organisations. The EMB also provides a 6-month full-time "Initiation Programme" incorporating both academic and non-academic support services, for NAC before they are formally placed into mainstream schools. The social issue aroused the interest of academic researchers to publish work about NACs' adaptation and school performance

In 2017 the Hong Kong government schools had 6,267 Pakistani students, the largest non-local bloc, and 818 white students of any national background. In 2013 there were 556 white students of any background in Hong Kong government schools. Historically non-local students from other Asian countries attended government schools while white students attended private schools instead. In 2018 Angie Chan of The New York Times reported that increasing numbers of white students were enrolling in Cantonese medium government schools. This was due to increasing tuitions from international schools which received influxes of wealthy Mainland Chinese and desires from parents for white students to learn Cantonese.[17]

As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy (ISC)[18] listed Hong Kong as having 175 international schools.[19] ISC defines an 'international school' in the following terms "ISC includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country, or if a school in a country where English is one of the official languages, offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country’s national curriculum and is international in its orientation."[19] This definition is used by publications including The Economist.[20]

While the ISC definition allows for an objective number is does also mean that the count of "International Schools" is often considerably higher than the number of schools that would be relevant to an international, expatriate audience. WhichSchoolAdvisor.com,[21] a review based site that looks exclusively at schools attended by expatriates, has 100 international schools listed in its directory,[22] less than the ISC count, but still 17 more than its great city rival, Singapore. Of these 24 schools follow in part or in full a UK based curriculum[23] (largely the I/GCSE up to 16, A Level post 16), while others follow a UK/International Baccalaureate blend with the IB Diploma offered for post-16 study. Some 33 schools in Hong Kong currently offer the Diploma.[24]

Hong Kong's international schools are not subject to independent inspection reports by the territory's regulator, meaning word of mouth tends to drive reputation as to what are considered to be the best performing international schools in the territory. A large number of parent forums exist that help parents new to Hong Kong make an often very difficult decision.

Private, international schools come at very different prices. The most expensive school is currently Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong, with average annual fees of HKD $360,000 (USD $46,450.13). These fees are skewed by the fact that this school is boarding only, and only for the students studying the last two years of the IB. The next most expensive school in the territory is the Chinese International School (CIS), an IB continuum, bi-lingual school (Mandarin and English).[25] Its average fees across year groups is currently HKD 216,500 (USD $27,935).[26]

In addition to the international day school, Hong Kong's Japanese population is served by a weekend education programme, the Hong Kong Japanese Supplementary School (香港日本人補習授業校, Honkon Nihonjin Hoshū Jugyō Kō, HKJSS).[27]

In 2018 Angie Chan reported that increasing numbers of Chinese students, including Hong Kong Chinese and Mainland Chinese, were enrolling in private international schools. In 2017 the percentage of foreign students in such institutions was under 75%, with Hong Kong Chinese being 21.6% and Mainland Chinese being about 4%. In previous eras virtually the entire international school student body was foreign.[17]

There are top-rated exempted courses where courses offered overseas are collaborated with local institutions in Hong Kong to broaden the scope of Tertiary Education in Hong Kong.[28] MIT has an innovation node in Hong Kong.[29]

In early days, many primary schools in Hong Kong offered half-day schooling, splitting by AM and PM to handle the demand. The two sessions were usually treated as separate school entities with two different headmasters. To make up for the time of shortened half days, students were sometimes required to attend alternate Saturdays. Most primary schools are gradually moving to full school day systems as government policy aims to phase out half-day schooling over time as resource permits.

Due to the drop in birth rate in recent years, many primary schools were forced to cut classes, cut teachers and even close down. There have been debates that one should seize the opportunity to promote small class teaching, in order to mitigate the pressure of teachers, class and school reductions, on top of improving ratio of students to teachers.

Good behaviour has always been emphasised in Hong Kong, to the point that it is sometimes said to hinder pupils' development. Misbehavior is recorded and shown on school reports. The Education Bureau (EDB) provides the 'Guidelines for Student Disciplines' to schools to as guidance in creating a disciplined education environment. It outlines the principles and policies regarding student discipline, the organisational structure of a school discipline team, the roles and responsibilities of the discipline master and mistress, and discipline strategies illustrated with case studies.[30]

• Education by country
• Education in the UK
• Education in the People's Republic of China
• List of schools in Hong Kong
• List of universities in Hong Kong
• 334 Scheme (New Senior Secondary Scheme)
• EMI schools

• Tang, Kwok-Chun (Hong Kong Baptist University) and Mark Bray (University of Hong Kong). "Colonial models and the evolution of education systems: centralization and decentralization in Hong Kong and Macau." World Bank.
• Chan, Anita K.W. and Lucille L.S. Ngan. "Investigating the differential mobility experiences of Chinese cross-border students." Mobilities. Volume 13, 2018. Issue 1. p. 142-156. DOI 10.1080/17450101.2017.1300452.
• "LIBRARIES AND INFORMATION CENTRES IN HONG KONG" (PDF). Hong Kong University Press. 1996.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Education in Hong Kong.

• Education Bureau, Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region