Monitor | Unjust sense of entitlement, or a bargain for the public purse?
It would appear that government funding in its schools is HK$50,000 per pupil, against a subsidy of HK$21,000 per child in ESF schools
There's been far too much harmony in these pages lately. Jake van der Kamp and Monitor have agreed about almost everything recently, including what a lousy idea the government's new property taxes are.
In a nutshell, Jake argued that the ESF should be no more entitled to government subsidies than any other international schools. If expatriates cannot afford to educate their children in Hong Kong in the absence of a government subsidy, they should either demand more pay, put their kids into the government's Chinese-language schools, or pack up and go home.
I have to take issue with Jake here. On a couple of points, he's wide of the mark.
First, those pestilential expats. According to the ESF's latest breakdown of its pupils' ethnic origin, 44 per cent are Chinese and another 30 per cent are other Asians or "Eurasians". Just 22 per cent are classed as "Caucasian", which means they are of European descent, not that they come from Azerbaijan.
And of the 12,922 pupils attending ESF schools last year, 69 per cent were Hong Kong permanent residents.