End of ESF as the affordable choice for Hong Kong's middle class

Ever since British gunboats took on the overmatched Chinese navy in the name of "free trade" (then a euphemism for the right to peddle opium), Hong Kong has been a place of great paradoxes - a clash of East and West that ultimately became a triumph of accommodation, ingenuity and hard work.

The contradictions have only deepened and multiplied since the city's 1997 return to Chinese sovereignty. Post 1997, Hong Kong inherited an English educational system, for example, the unique and exemplary aspect of which was the English Schools Foundation, now a group of 20 schools with a track record of excellence.

For years, the ESF provided a high-quality education not just to a revolving door of wealthy expats but also to a Chinese middle class.

Unfortunately, the ESF is a paradox with which the Hong Kong government can no longer live. As the blinkered official argument goes, the government subvention that has kept ESF fees significantly lower than those at the best international schools amounts to nothing less than an antiquated, unjustifiable subsidy for rich foreigners.

So the annual HK$283 million subvention will end in 2016 - and, in anticipation of that loss, the ESF has been raising fees and imposing capital levies willy-nilly for the past several years. Just this month it announced a non-refundable HK$38,000 charge, on top of tuition fees, for each new student starting next year. Financially strapped ESF parents are again up in arms, lashing out at new ESF head Belinda Greer, and pleading for relief. But the die is cast. It's time to write the sad epitaph for the ESF as we have known it: once an affordable middle-class refuge for a top-notch English-medium education, it will henceforth be just another group of overpriced international schools catering to deep-pocketed expats and the local elite.

It's too bad; it didn't have to be this way. If the Education Bureau had demonstrated a little imagination, not to mention appreciation of Hong Kong's paradoxical history, the ESF could have continued to serve the city well, playing a key role in an educational vision that is woefully lacking at this time.