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In a run-down classroom, Dearing learns to smile

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SCMP, November 27, 2002

By Chow Chung-yan in Tanmen Town, Hainan

The school is in a remote mainland village, half an hour's drive along potholed roads from the next town. Each class has about 50 pupils, many the children of farm workers, and school fees are 60 yuan (HK$56) a year.

This is where 11-year-old Dearing Leung has been sent to study by her parents, two years after they withdrew her from her primary school in Tai Po, complaining Hong Kong teaching methods were 'inhumane'.

Dearing's case and the legality of her home schooling hit the headlines when her father, Leung Chi-kwong, refused Education Department demands to send her back to school. He was warned he faced prosecution if Dearing failed to return when the school year started on September 2.

Instead, Dearing was spirited away to begin a new life in Futian Primary School, Hainan.

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