Angry parents take case to Legco

Parents and alumni of two elite government-aided girls' schools plan to lodge complaints to the legislature tomorrow over a proposed switch to the Direct Subsidy Scheme.

They say the conversion would jeopardise the poorer pupils' access to equal education, as the two schools may start charging fees and they may not be able to afford them.

Alumni of St Paul's Secondary School and parents of pupils at St Stephen's Girls' Primary School will lodge two separate complaints tomorrow to the Legislative Council's redress system over the schools' plans to join the scheme.

They say St Paul's consultation with stakeholders on the proposal was inadequate.

"The so-called consultation only lasted for a month, in February. Two of those weeks fell within the Lunar New Year holiday," said Betty Wah Shan, a St Paul's alumna.

And she said it was not possible to accurately gauge parents' views from the first lot of questionnaires that were handed out.

"There were no options to say you supported or didn't support the plan. The school forcibly classified parents' views so that half of them had no comment, 24 per cent supported it and only a handful of them opposed it," she said. Wah added that a second consultation was conducted with parents and alumni but the results had not yet been released - even though the proposal to become a DSS school in the 2014-15 academic year was submitted in February.