Many teachers and principals are scrambling to salvage their livelihoods as Hong Kong's falling student rolls threaten to make them redundant - but they are not alone. Businesses that traditionally thrived on a large student population are also being forced to look for new ways to make up the sharp fall in profits.
Firms that produced school uniforms are diversifying, turning to workers' uniforms and even party costumes. School bus operators are increasingly transporting tourists and wedding guests. One textbook publisher is turning some of its staff members into teaching specialists.
The Education Bureau estimates the city's Form One population will fall from 75,400 in the past academic year to 53,900 in 2016-17. Across six forms, the drop of 97,600 students by 2016 will mean a big chunk sliced off the business pie.
Teachers will bear the brunt of the shrinking enrolments: 2,500 in secondary schools will be surplus by 2012, the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers estimates.
But the falling school rolls are also creating 'fatal' shocks to other trades, according to businesspeople involved. Fast-diminishing profit margins are squeezing small players out of business.
Ben Mak Ka-lung, deputy regional director of Oxford University Press China, says the industry is reeling from these grave blows. 'The number of senior secondary publishers has been reduced from 48 a decade ago to 16 this year,' he said. 'Education reform has brought a change in emphasis from rote- to inquiry-based learning. We need to make a heavy investment to produce supplementary teaching materials to nurture students' critical thinking.