Tin Shui Wai kindergarten's ousting shows market failure, lobby group says

The debacle over a Tin Shui Wai preschool which was ousted from its campus by a rival shows the market-driven system is detrimental to early childhood education, an advocacy group for free kindergartens says.

"Early childhood education is often seen by the government as a private-sector responsibility," Gail Yuen Wai-kwan, convenor of the Alliance on the Fight for 15-year Free Education, said yesterday. "It means educational issues - such as quality, places and development - are being determined by the market."

Yuen, an education policy specialist at the Institute of Education, said the fate of Topkids International Preschool, which has to move from its Sherwood Court, Kingswood Villas campus before the new school year in September, exposed "harsh" conditions in the private market.

The government's voucher scheme for kindergartens is worth HK$20,010 per child for the 2014-15 financial year and goes up to HK$22,510 the following year.

But Yuen said government spending on kindergartens accounted for just 4 per cent of the education budget.

That means kindergartens must rely on tuition fees, putting poorer families at a disadvantage.