Crazy elitism in Hong Kong schools has gone too far
Wah Yan College has become the latest school to have its bid to charge tuition rejected. It is good that another prestigious school will remain free for all
The well-known Catholic boys’ school, Wah Yan College, has become the latest school to have a bid to charge pupils tuition rejected by the Education Bureau.
It’s certainly a good thing that another prestigious school will remain free for all, instead of joining the so-called Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) under which many elite schools are able to charge substantial fees in addition to receiving public subsidies.
Critics have argued that there are no clear criteria by which bureau officials accept or reject an application for the scheme. That’s hardly surprising, though in this case, I agree with the bureau’s decision.
Education officials like to pretend the DSS is a policy and that it offers educators and parents more choices. In reality, its expansion in recent years was sheer expediency, stemming from the dismal failure of education reforms under the first post-1997 administration of Tung Chee-hwa.
The tragic irony is that from a bungled if well-intended reform to achieve greater egalitarianism in public education, we now have an extreme elitism creeping into the whole system.