Hong Kong's preschools must serve their purpose of getting children ready for school

Recent reports about a tutoring centre offering kindergarten-interview training classes for children as young as 18 months have understandably caused outrage among a public concerned about a school system that puts so much pressure on young children. From a parent's point of view, they don't want their child to be left behind; from an operator's viewpoint, they are filling a "market need".

The fact that parents and children feel such stress shows that the early childhood industry is not doing its job here. Hong Kong has one of the world's most expensive early childhood systems, and yet preschools and kindergartens across the city have essentially abdicated their responsibility to make children school-ready.

Even some of the more expensive preschools conduct "transition to primary" and interview prep classes for extra fees. Isn't it the job of a good preschool to get children ready to enter school?

There appears to be two main tracks of practice here. "International" preschools profess to follow essentially European philosophies on early childhood education developed 50 years ago, and when they find these are not what primary schools are looking for, they run "extra classes".

Meanwhile, local preschools turn into cram schools for three-year-olds without any regard for the overall development of the child. This dichotomy reflects a lack of understanding of the importance of early childhood education, and the practical stresses on parents raising children in Hong Kong.

The first five years of a child's life lay the foundation of his or her future; 85 per cent of the human brain develops in these years. A good preschool would develop children organically, at a pace they are comfortable with, across a range of areas including academic proficiency, self-confidence, ability to express themselves, creativity and imagination, logic and reasoning, communication, writing abilities and the like.