Tired and late: bad start for cross-border pupils heading to Hong Kong schools

Cross-border pupils ventured beyond the New Territories to primary school for the first time yesterday - with many of the six-year-olds arriving late despite having left their homes about three hours beforehand.

Thirty-one of the 45 cross-border pupils starting at Baptist Rainbow Primary School in Wong Tai Sin turned up more than half an hour late.

And many of them were yawning as they stepped off the school buses at about 9.10am - after setting off from home at about 6am. The school day starts at 8.25am and the final bell rings about 4-1/2 hours later, at 1pm.

Huang Xuan's six-year-old daughter was among those who spent 51/2 hours on the road - an hour longer than she spent at school. She left home at 6.15am to catch the school bus from Shenzhen Bay and did not get home until 3.30pm.

"She looked really tired when she came back," said Huang. "She likes to take a walk or play in the evenings, but today she said she didn't want to do anything as soon as she got home."

Rainbow is the first and only school outside the New Territories assigned for cross-border pupils, after a new policy was introduced last year to relieve the pressure on the New Territories' North District, the closest district to the northern border.