Hong Kong’s ‘youth problem’ is really the failure of its test-focused education system

Alice Wu says many Hong Kong youngsters feel depressed and hopeless in large part due to the city’s high-pressure, elitist education system, which classifies students early by test scores and leaves under-performers to languish

3-MIN READ3-MIN

DSE students apply for self-financed degrees, associate degrees and higher diplomas at the Institute of Vocational Education’s Haking Wong campus in Cheung Sha Wan on July 12. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 1:31pm, 16 Jul 2017Updated: 6:23pm, 16 Jul 2017

Every year, right around the beginning of summer break, a significant portion of the Hong Kong population engages in an extreme sport called breath-holding – when students waiting for secondary school placement or Diploma of Secondary Education exam results and their parents are put through the torture of holding their breath and sleep deprivation.

And every year, I find myself asking the same question: does it have to be this way? This cruel punishment has become part of life, but the question is: are our students and parents better for it?

But these are just two of the many hurdles youngsters and their guardians have to cross. We put them through the skewer just months after babies are born. The baby gyms and playgroups make sure we train our young to jump through hoops to prove themselves protégés. And this continues throughout the school years.

We’ve come to just accept it. Parents rarely complain any more because that takes time and energy away from fighting the system. And that system determines their children’s paths as early as kindergarten – either you are deemed top-performers or you are under-performers.

Richard Choy Wai-chak, a top scorer in the DSE exam, and his classmates at Queen’s College in Hong Kong on July 12. Photo: David Wong

The reality is that we have an uber-elitist education system. We talk about study stress and youth suicide, but just take a look at the perfect DSE scorers – rather, the schools that churn them out – and we know that getting a place in one of our “elite schools”, ideally by first grade, is most important.