Po Kok Primary wants to overturn a decision that will halt first-year classes at some aided institutions
The government is facing a new legal challenge to its attempts to close under-enrolled schools, with the Po Kok Primary School in Happy Valley seeking a judicial review of the policy.
The school's supervisor, Vera Joyce Hui Lo, yesterday filed a High Court writ seeking a review of the decision to phase out Primary One classes for aided primary schools that attract fewer than 23 first-year pupils. 'It is submitted the intention of the Education and Manpower Bureau to bring about the quick demise of the APSs [aided primary schools] in question and its subsequent acts and conduct are anything but promoting education,' the writ says.
The school is asking for a quick hearing, before the allocation of pupils is announced next month.
In March, parents from two schools in Tai Po and Sheung Shui filed writs demanding the government allow the schools to continue to accept Primary One pupils.
Yesterday's writ also seeks a declaration that the previous criteria for aided primary schools to maintain a Primary One class be reinstated. Before the bureau's decision in January last year to increase the limit, the minimum enrolment was 16.
The writ says the school was Hong Kong's first free school for girls and was founded by the late Lady Clara Ho Tung as the Po Ko Free School.