Renovation trainee Ah Kwok quit school nine months ago, midway through Form Three. The 15-year-old was 'persuaded' to leave after he was involved in a fight on school grounds. He is among almost 2,000 problem pupils who leave each year - before reaching the legal leaving age of 15 - after schools find roundabout ways to get rid of them without officially expelling or suspending them. 'Although I was often ticked off for untidy appearance, the fighting incident was the first time I committed a big misdemeanour,' Ah Kwok says. 'But they asked my parents to come to school the next day and persuaded them to sign the voluntary withdrawal form.' The reasons for the departures cited by the Education Bureau included pupils transferring to other schools and leaving Hong Kong. No pupils had been officially expelled in the past five years or advised to leave school voluntarily, according to the bureau. This provoked a strong response from organisations that deal with dropout cases. Frontline case workers and social work professors say while blatant cases involving expulsion and coercion are rare, schools resort to roundabout ways to make pupils leave of their own accord. Wayward and non-conformist pupils are segregated from others. They are put in sick rooms or discipline rooms for extended periods, making them lose motivation to go to school. In other cases, teachers persuade parents into signing voluntary withdrawal forms, saying it would be in their child's best interests to switch to another school. But without recommendation letters or support services to look for another school, it is hard to find alternatives. Catering worker Peter Chan was persuaded to sign a voluntary withdrawal letter three years ago after his son, then in Form Two at an aided school, was caught with a packet of cigarettes in his bag. 'I was summoned to the school and the discipline supervisor looked solemn and said what he did was unbearable and warranted instant suspension,' Chan said. 'I always knew he was a problematic kid. So when they offered me the form I just signed it, although my son said he didn't want to leave. If I had known about my legal rights then, I would certainly have refused to sign him out.' His son, who now works the night shift at a fast-food chain, was convicted of stealing and put on probation a year ago. 'He has always wanted to go back to school. But he feels ashamed to study alongside other Form Two pupils as a 17-year-old,' Chan said. Christine Cheung Yeuk-tip of the Hong Kong Playground Association, which has a unit dedicated to helping teenage dropouts resume their studies, says schools adopt many ploys to force pupils out while not flouting government rules. 'They teach pupils to write sick notes. Pupils might go to school after six days of continuous absence, removing the need for the school to report to the bureau,' she says. 'On the pretext of not wanting them to disrupt classes, some teachers put pupils in special rooms or make them stand in front of the staff room every day. The pupils will eventually lose motivation to go to school and apply to drop out of their own accord.' Cases of schools persuading underperforming senior secondary pupils to leave were widely reported in the media last year. Schools are under pressure to weed out underperforming or difficult pupils as they strive to enhance their reputations and academic records in the face of a shrinking population of pupils and a race to boost enrolment and stave off closure. Some dropouts are lucky enough to find more understanding schools where they can flourish. Form Five pupil Ah Mei, 17, was forced out by an aided school in Kwai Fong together with a group of underachievers after her Form Two final exams three years ago. 'They were afraid that I would lead the others astray,' she said. 'I was turned away by many schools before I was accepted by my current school in Tseung Kwan O. My current teachers are much more understanding and I enjoy school.' Instead of waiting for schools to report dropout cases, Victor Wong Cheong-wing, a professor with Baptist University's department of social work, says the bureau should step up its checks on schools to seek out pupils on the brink of dropping out. 'Many dropouts obviously leave school against their wishes. [The bureau] should take the initiative to investigate the so-called voluntary dropout cases,' he said. This is an edited version of a story that ran in the South China Morning Post on February 20
