Education in Hong Kong


Education in Hong Kong is largely modelled on that of the United Kingdom, particularly the English system. It is overseen by the Education Bureau and the Social Welfare Department.
In the 2019/20 school year, there are 587 primary schools, 504 secondary day schools, and 61 special schools.
The academic year begins mid-year, usually starting in September.

History

Small village Chinese schools were observed by the British missionaries when they arrived circa 1843. Anthony Sweeting believes those small village schools existed in Chek Chue, Shek Pai Wan, Heung Kong Tsai and Wong Nai Chong on Hong Kong Island, although proof is no longer available.
One of the earliest schools with reliable records was Li Ying College established in 1075 in present-day New Territories. 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.
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.
By 1861 Frederick Stewart became "The Founder of Hong Kong Education" for integrating a modern western-style education model into the Colonial Hong Kong school system. In 1862, the first government school, Queen's College was set up, with Stewart serving as the first Headmaster.
One of the much-contested debates was whether schools should offer Vernacular education, teaching in Chinese. 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. 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. Educating the poor did not become a priority until they accounted for the majority of the population. Financial issues were addressed in the 1970s.
A small group of South Asian Hongkongers marched through Central demanding more schooling in the English language on 3 June 2007.

Pre-school education

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. In 2013, the amount of subsidy under the PEVS is $16,800.

Primary and secondary education

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 19. However, a child 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.

School years

Secondary education

Secondary education is separated into junior and senior years. In junior years, the curriculum is a broad one where history, geography, and science are studied alongside subjects that have already been studied at primary schools. In senior years, this becomes more selective and students have a choice over what and how much is to be studied. Almost all schools but PLK Vicwood KT Chong Sixth Form College and its feeder junior secondary college have both sessions.
Annually, Form 6 students studying in local schools in Hong Kong sit for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education between early March through early May. However, a minority of local secondary schools in Hong Kong also offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program for their students as an alternative choice to the HKDSE curriculum, for example, Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School and St. Paul's Co-educational College.

Further education

The commerce stream in secondary schools is considered vocational. Students in the Commerce stream would usually enter the workplace to gain practical work experience by this point. Further education pursuits in the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education or universities abroad are common. The Manpower Development Committee advises the government on coordination, regulation, and promotion of the sector. Also, the Vocational Training Council ensures the level of standard is met through the "Apprentice Ordinance". The VTC also operates three skills-centres for people with disabilities. secondary schools in Hong Kong are going to be cut down to only two years due to the switch in the government.

Alternative education options

International institutions provide both primary and secondary education in Hong Kong. International institutions like schools within the English Schools Foundation, Li Po Chun United World College, Hong Kong International School, American International School Hong Kong, Chinese International School, German Swiss International School, Canadian International School, Hong Kong Japanese School, Hong Kong Academy, French International School, Yew Chung International School, Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School, Singapore International School, and Harrow International School Hong Kong teach with English as the primary language, with some sections bilingual in German, French and Chinese. International school students rarely take Hong Kong public exams. British students take GCSE, IGCSE, and A-levels. US students take APs. Increasingly, international schools follow the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program and enter universities through non-JUPAS direct entry. International students apply on a per-school basis, whereas Hong Kong local students submit 1 application for multiple local universities as a JUPAS applicant.

Tertiary and Higher education

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.
As a result, many continue their studies abroad, as can be seen in the following table.
Country197519841986198819901992199419982000
Hong Kong11,57521,53825,99529,59134,55642,72152,49459,52859,408
Australia5721,6581,6871,8893,8646,70711,93217,13520,739
US11,9309,0009,7209,16012,63014,01812,9408,7307,545
UK4,4346,5006,9357,3007,7007,6007,4005,4505,200
Canada6,6447,7236,7305,8406,3726,6006,5895,0005,000
Taiwan2,6263,8163,8543,8503,6333,4502,6631,4871,171

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

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.

Education for immigrant and non-Cantonese-speaking children

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. Hayes Tang provided good sociology of education thesis on the
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.

International education

As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy listed Hong Kong as having 175 international schools. 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." This definition is used by publications including The Economist. 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. MIT has an innovation node in Hong Kong.
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.
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.

Types of schools

Legacy

From 70/80s to 2011/12

From 2012/13 to persent

Class size

Many primary schools in Hong Kong offer half-day schooling, splitting by AM and PM to handle the demand. The two sessions are usually treated as separate school entities with two different headmasters. To make up for the time of shortened half days, students are 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. Doing so could mitigate the pressure of teachers, class and school reductions, on top of improving ratio of students to teachers.

Discipline

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 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.

Criticisms

Spoon feeding

Education in Hong Kong has often been described as 'spoon fed'. Cram schools in Hong Kong have also become a popular standard in parallel to regular education. Teachers focus on helping students getting high scores in the major exams and heavily rely on textbook knowledge rather than exchanging ideas and essence of the subjects.

Education reform

With the advent of education reform there is a greater emphasis on group projects, open-ended assignments on top of traditional homework. The current workload of a primary student in Hong Kong includes approximately two hours of schoolwork nightly. Along with extra-curricular activities, Hong Kong's education has become synonymous for leaning towards quantity. As early as March 1987, education advisory inspectors became concerned with the excessive amounts of "mechanical work and meaningless homework". In particular, history education has been recognised as ineffective, with critics claiming that the curriculum is not capable of delivering a sense of identity. Not only that, students have to memorise the whole history texts, thereby indicating that rote-learning has greater priority than absorbing and understanding material.
Some have criticised the system for having too narrow of a stream focus, too early on. Legco Member Alan Leong argued in a guest lecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong that secondary level science students are incapable of participating in meaningful discussions on history, arts, or literature. Vice versa journalists of arts stream background are incapable of accurately discussing technological issues. The narrow focus of education in Hong Kong has been a concern.
The pervasive perception from observers in overseas education institutions generally is that a typical Hong Kong student compared with other students, even against other students in the Asia region, lacks systematic decision-making confidence and relies on repetition and undeveloped answers. This deviates from the common benchmark of intellect where value propositions are generated from innovation and distinctive solutions, and this has led to much schism in the debate of educational direction of Hong Kong, where the populace makes no such aspiration for intellect but seek constant reaffirmation of the value of myriad certificates obtained through pedagogy throughout their working lives. The desperation to seek standing in life through education is further highlighted by severe ironies such as:
  1. Senior education officials often acclaim the excellence of Hong Kong education, yet few if any will let their children matriculate locally, preferring overseas universities instead.
  2. A certificate driven society that takes pride in its academic excellence is unable to devise a suitable benchmark of excellence itself, with a low public approval of the local educational system, relies on certification from outside Hong Kong.