Opinion | Stamp out the elitism in Hong Kong education

We who live in this city certainly didn't need the World Economic Forum to tell us we are competitive. Sure, being placed a few spots lower in the rankings than our supposedly biggest rival, Singapore, may get our adrenaline going, but if someone were to do a ranking of preschoolers, my bet is that we would be in the top five.

My mum didn't have to put together an educational portfolio for me when I was young. I had enough homework, but not enough to cut into my TV and play time. I took piano and swimming lessons, and also ballet. None of these made it to my portfolio, because I didn't have one; in those days, four-year-olds weren't expected to have a curriculum vitae.

But the world has changed. I've been told by family and friends who are raising children that playing the piano no longer counts as a skill, extracurricular activity or interest. According to them, it is now treated as some sort of basic motor skill.

After so much talk about tiger mums and cubs, this surely is a new breed of Übermensch.

Our education system has morphed into one best described as elitism on crack. It determines a child's future by the age of four, since the rules of the game dictate that, in order to get into a good university, one is required to have come from an elite secondary school, which requires that one has attended an elite primary school; and the prerequisite for an elite primary education is attendance at an elite kindergarten, which in turn requires graduation from a preschool for the extraordinary.

We have a system that requires children to jump through hoops of fire, demonstrate extraordinary talent and compete in a cutthroat recruitment process. Only a modern-day Frankenstein could have created this monster.