Letters | How Hong Kong primary schools lay the poverty trap

Poor, working-class parents (many of whom do not read English) have to scramble to hire tutors at the cost of other essential expenses

Sadly, a modern curriculum that allows an average child to thrive without tutors sounds too radical for Hong Kong

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The burden of poverty weighs ever heavier on students from lower-income families, with lessons becoming harder and resources for outside support out of reach for many. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 11:03am, 12 Dec 2018Updated: 11:02am, 12 Dec 2018

I refer to your editorial on poverty issues (“New thinking needed to level playing field for those living in poverty”, December 9). It is ironic that the 17.5 per cent of the city’s children living in poverty have been locked into the situation by the very education system that is supposed to help them.

Early education is vitally important for these children, yet the government virtually condemns them to failure. As the burden of children’s education increasingly falls on parents, poor families are disproportionately harmed.

In Hong Kong, homework for primary students is designed to require adult supervision. Requiring poor, often unsupervised, children to complete the same homework is borderline cruelty.

What is a six-year-old supposed to do, faced with homework instructions they cannot read? Flip through any Primary One exercise book in English, Chinese or maths, and judge if a child can do their homework on their own.

A primary school student does his homework in his 50 sq ft home. Photo: Dickson Lee

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.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}Letters | How Hong Kong primary schools lay the poverty trap

Letters | How Hong Kong primary schools lay the poverty trap