One of the more positive outcomes from the government's controversial education reform has been the expansion in the number of schools on its direct subsidy scheme. Such schools enjoy more freedom to develop their own curriculums and language policies than public schools and those fully funded by the government. As a result, many of the most innovative programmes in recent years have emerged from this segment of the local education sector.
Now, two top direct subsidy schools are making a bold experiment to take on non-Chinese-speaking students. St Paul's Co-educational College and Diocesan Boys School are setting up boarding houses and International Baccalaureate programmes to cater to non-native speakers of Chinese. Special Chinese-language programmes are being developed for such pupils to learn the language. Those in the new programmes will have to pay more because the government will not be directly funding them. However, the charges will still be considerably less than what parents are paying at international schools, and possibly even at those under the partly subsided English Schools Foundation. These schools have long dominated education for non-Chinese-speaking pupils. If proved successful, the new programmes at the direct subsidy schools will bring new competition to that particular educational sector. Competition in general tends to bring down costs and raise quality - although it should be said that quality is already quite high among some of the schools.
Whether by design or inadvertently, the government's direct subsidy funding programme has encouraged more schools to experiment and innovate. Such schools are given an annual lump sum, which may or may not cover all their costs. To pay for new programmes, ambitious schools therefore have to raise their own money from alternative sources and increase tuitions. Innovation and greater competition have often been the result.
The bold expansion plans at Diocesan Boys School and St Paul's will, it is hoped, help internationalise local education. They will also allow non-native families to give their children a bilingual education with an emphasis on Chinese. We wish them every success.