Decision to shut schools hits private tutors hard
Private tutorial centres and tutors are losing business because parents are keeping their children out of learning centres and cancelling private lessons for fear of exposing them to the Sars virus.
Tom Godfrey, managing director of language specialists Berlitz, said: 'Everyone has been affected financially. It is going to be a bad month.'
One operator questioned why the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) had excluded them from the order to suspend schools last month, even though they are registered with the bureau and run classes that could expose children to the virus as much as day schools.
Clive Burns, manager of Word Power English Learning Centre in North Point, said this was a 'cynical' move to avoid having to pay compensation for lost business.
'If the EMB are truly concerned about the interests of public health, they should have imposed the closure on all schools,' he said. 'It may well be that the issue is about money, where the government is more concerned about having to pay compensation than about the threat to the health of Hong Kong children.'
Word Power is closed for the moment. 'This is hitting us hard,' said Mr Burns. 'We have no income but we still have overheads.' The business could only survive six to eight weeks in the current situation, he said.
But a bureau spokeswoman denied it was trying to avoid paying compensation. 'Compensation is not our consideration,' she said. Tutorial centres were commercial enterprises and should not fall under the government mandate to suspend lessons.
Some centres are staying open. 'People say we're only open to make money,' said Elaine Shannon, founder of the Ready To Learn tutorial schools. The decision was made after consulting parents.
Peter Forsythe, head of the Wall Street Institute School of English, said panic had set in and was disrupting classes unnecessarily. 'It's completely ridiculous,'' he said, adding that schools did not need to close if appropriate hygiene measures were observed.
Part-time and self-employed tutors have been hardest hit. Antonio Arancio, a part-time English lecturer at City University, said all his classes had been cancelled and he was now out of pocket.
