Lillian Lui Lai-hung used to earn HK$25,000 a month as a teacher-in-charge at one kindergarten. Now she earns just HK$4,500 a month as principal of another. But she's happy because she feels she's doing a worthwhile job, helping a struggling school to stay open. About a year after quitting her job at an international kindergarten in Discovery Bay, Lui read of the plight of the Yuen Kong Kindergarten in Yuen Long.
The preschool, catering for children from low-income and ethnic-minority families, faced closure because it could not hire a principal at the salary it was able to offer. Lui stepped into the breach.
The Hong Kong-born 44-year-old said education was more important than money. 'What will happen to the kids when the kindergarten closes?' she asked herself. 'How will they find a new school? Will they have any difficulties?'
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to help. 'I had the qualifications to help this school. If I had not helped it, I would have blamed myself.' She met the kindergarten's supervisor in March, becoming principal in April - and quickly found there was a lot more to the job than teaching.
The first task was getting all the equipment working. 'I was surprised. There was no phone. The piano and the printer didn't work. There were so many things I needed to fix.'
She was alone at the school until a teacher arrived on August 1 and a janitor on August 10. 'When there was only me at the kindergarten, I had to clean the floor and the toilet myself before the kids came to school. Then I had lessons with them until noon.