Move follows court cases in which employees admitted they had sexually abused students. One had prior convictions
Parents, educators and children's groups have called for schools to be allowed to check the criminal records of prospective staff following two court cases last week in which school employees admitted they had sexually abused students.
Wong Chi-ho, 36, a former police officer who quit the force after two convictions for loitering in women's toilets, pleaded guilty to nine counts of indecent assault involving four girls at a Whampoa primary school where he worked as a technician after being released from prison. He is due to be sentenced next Friday.
In a separate case, physical education and Chinese teacher Chung Yui-hung, 38, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 12-year-old girl he had met through the internet and possessing child pornography. He will be sentenced later this month.
Leung Chung-wan, chairman of the Hong Kong Parents' Association, said parents would be shocked that a man who had been convicted of loitering could then get a job at a school. 'It should be forbidden that such a person be employed at a school,' he said. 'We have a duty to protect students.'
The convictions came the week after revelations in Education Post that the Education and Manpower Bureau did not do background checks on overseas teachers unless they volunteered information on prior criminal offences. 'The world is so big, it would be very difficult to check,' a bureau spokesman said.