Staff at kindergartens that signed up for the government voucher scheme have suffered pay cuts in some cases of up to nine-tenths of their previous salaries, according to a teachers' union.
The Professional Teachers' Union says the massive reduction in wages is linked to the capping of fees for the centres amid soaring costs and inflation.
A kindergarten group says there will be more pressure in the coming year because of the introduction of the statutory minimum wage.
In North District alone, 30 per cent of kindergartens accepting the vouchers - with which the government subsidises fees for families - have cut teachers' wages, the union says. The cuts, it says, have ranged as high as 89 per cent compared to a year earlier.
Kindergartens, meanwhile, are facing staff wastage rates of up to 40 per cent.
'The structural problem of the pre-primary education voucher scheme is that pay is either frozen or cut for kindergarten teachers,' union president Fung Wai-wah said.
The scheme was introduced by the Education Bureau in 2007 to provide subsidies for parents sending their children to non-profit-making kindergartens.