Hong Kong has a thriving preschool sector with a wide range of kindergartens, whole-day nurseries, and playgroups offering many different approaches to early learning and care. Children are at their most impressionable during the preschool years, so the setting you choose will have a big impact on your child's language abilities, skills and personality. There are many issues to consider and the first is language.
Like most government and aided primary schools, the vast majority of preschools in Hong Kong operate in Cantonese, but there is also a sizeable international preschool sector. Most of these use English as the medium of communication but a growing minority operate in Putonghua or English and Putonghua, while many offer foreign language classes.
Although most Hong Kong parents want their children to learn a second or even third language as they grow up, some leading early-learning educators discourage total immersion in a second language at the preschool stage.
'Language confusion will dampen children's self-confidence, not to mention its effects on learning,' said Mary Tong Siu-fun, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Kindergarten Association.
'Parents should also have decided, before enrolling their children in kindergartens, the future path of the children in the years to come, all the way through high school or even college.
'The questions are: are they going to go to mainstream schools or international schools, or are they going to study overseas? If they are going abroad, will the curriculum in Hong Kong prepare them for their future development? Do you wish to enrol the children in schools with a religious background? These should all be considered before the parents apply for kindergartens.'
