Opinion | ESF debate boils down to what's fair

Education Minister Eddie Ng Hak-kim is coming close to a decision on the English Schools Foundation subvention. It is always a good thing when a minister is prepared to make a decision. Unfortunately, it seems that, in this case, Ng is on the verge of making the wrong one.

How can we help him turn back from the precipice? It should be said that he may not have been helped by some of the arguments advanced in favour of the subvention. And I think we can assume that his colleagues in the bureau have been urging him to scrap it without presenting all sides of the argument. They, like their predecessors, hate all international schools in general and the ESF in particular.

Those in favour of the subvention continuing tend to put forward arguments along the lines of, "Hong Kong needs expats, there should be subsidised education for their children, the ESF has a long history of providing quality education, anyway many of the children are local."

All these points have some validity but they can be overstated. Moreover, they miss the main point.

Those who want to scrap the subvention take the line that, "the ESF schools are like international ones, we do not subsidise these, so we should not help the ESF with recurrent costs either".

Now, there was a time when the ESF enjoyed an unfair advantage in funding vis-à-vis local schools. In those days - several decades ago - the government covered the full costs of ESF schools but the classes were smaller and the facilities of a higher standard. That meant the subsidy per pupil was considerably greater.

This injustice was later corrected and the subsidy per place for ESF schools was fixed at the same as the cost of educating a local child in a local school. This was simple and fair, and meant parents had to pay the extra costs for smaller classes and better facilities.