Officials act to cut waiting lists
The Government has bowed to pressure and promised to provide for 180 new international school places in a bid to reduce lengthy waiting lists.
Education Department assistant director Peter Leung Pak-yan said the Government was making arrangements with the English Schools Foundation (ESF) to run more classes early next year. There would be about six extra classes for 180 mainly primary students, Mr Leung said. 'More classes will be coming on stream, hopefully by January next year.' The new classrooms required will be located in Kowloon.
The move is designed to help ease the current places shortage experienced by the ESF and other international schools, and comes in the wake of a year of pressure from parents and the business community.
The Education Department was trying to pinpoint the extent of the shortage in a bid to match supply and demand, Mr Leung said.
The latest government survey showed that the SAR's 44 international schools, which between them offer about 30,000 places, in fact had a surplus of around 4,000 student places. 'This is because parents want their children to get into the more popular schools,' he said. The Government was analysing waiting lists to establish how many children already had places at another school.
'We expect the situation will ease by 2004-2005 when the new Private Independent Schools are coming on stream,' he said.
Other strategies to tackle the international school places problem include a new help desk for business expatriates who move to Hong Kong and have trouble placing their children in the schools they wanted.
ESF executive director Jennifer Wisker welcomed the extra places and said they would help ease long waiting lists, although they would not solve the problem fully.
She said that once the department had formally offered to provide premises for the classes the ESF would look for staff locally and would consider interviewing in the UK in September.
Primary schools were full, with business people from overseas keeping demand high, she said. Waiting lists were particularly long in Kowloon and the New Territories. 'It will certainly help but still technically there's a long waiting list.'
Michael Rowse, head of Invest Hong Kong, a government business unit established to attract investment to Hong Kong, said concern about the places problem had driven him to talk to schools to try to find a solution. 'Quite simply, there are not enough places,' he said. 'The ones I have talked to say they have a serious shortage.'
But British Chamber of Commerce executive director Christopher Hammerbeck said the problem was not as bad as the business community believed, and had much to do with choice.
Schools were pressured, he said, because people had become more wealthy and wanted their children to go to schools that taught in English and were linked to countries they might choose for tertiary education.
Mr Hammerbeck said that some of the 44 international schools had long waiting lists, but 13 schools had none. 'There's a mismatch between demand and supply of school places at different levels,' he said.
Australian International School assistant principal Margaret Merrell said the Government had become more aware of the trouble families had in finding places. 'Some people are becoming reluctant to come to Hong Kong because they can't get the education they want for their children,' she said.
There was still a waiting list for younger children at the Australian International School despite the fact that it would be moving to its enlarged, purpose-built campus in Kowloon Tong this September, she said. Around 130 new students will be starting at that time.
