Just Saying | Lost childhood: Hong Kong’s daunting quest to ease the agony of early schooling
Yonden Lhatoo is encouraged, but far from satisfied, by the government’s long-overdue move to curb drilling in kindergartens and primary schools
My favourite little boy in the world recently flunked his first pre-kindergarten “entrance exam”. I’m talking about my godson, and I’m not in the least embarrassed to tell you about it.
He just turned two and has barely started speaking, so he wasn’t having any of it when he was forced to pay attention in a room full of strangers and jump through a bunch of hoops with aptitude tests and other nonsense.
His mother tells me he threw a tantrum and refused to cooperate, so he “failed” the “interview”, along with another little boy who was also not in the mood that day.
She also sent me a photo of the two toddlers, after their ordeal, playing at a nearby supermarket. They were riding a shopping trolley with abandon, faces reflecting a state of blissful unawareness that we can never recapture in adulthood. And that’s exactly what they should be doing at this age. What else is there for a two-year-old except fun and games?
The Hong Kong centres getting children ready for kindergarten
The amount of stress that parents in our city put themselves and their toddlers through in securing kindergarten and primary school seats is just insane. And totally unnecessary.