Hong Kong provides nine years of free and compulsory education - from Primary One to Secondary Three - for every child. That is why school fees are charged only on students attending Form Four and above.
At present, the fee for Forms Four and Five is $5,050 a year and that for Forms Six and Seven $8,750.
Despite a prolonged economic slowdown since 1998 that has battered its fiscal health, the government has not raised the fees for some years, even though it has been spending more and more on education.
In 1988/89, it spent on average $28,900 a year to educate a student in Forms Four and Five; in 2002/03, the figure had surged to $35,700. During the same period, the unit cost of educating a student in Forms Six and Seven had risen from $51,700 to $60,800.
As school fees have remained unchanged, that means parents now bear a smaller share of total spending on their children's education.
In 1988/89, fees accounted for 17 per cent of costs, compared with 14 per cent in 2002/03.
The issue that the government is going to consult the public is whether parents should be asked to contribute more to the costs of their children's education by paying higher fees.
