'Twisted, inhuman school system fails our children': why Hong Kong parents homeschool their kids

Eric Chan Kwun-tat and his wife often visit the local park with their daughters, four-year-old Maeve and two-year-old Mysha.  It’s a fun time for the girls, who play on a swings and slides without constant reminders from their parents to be careful.

“Children can do a lot of things on their own, despite what many parents think,” Chan says.

This laid-back attitude is a radical change from two years ago, when he would attend all kinds of parenting workshops to learn how to groom Maeve to be a “genius”, feeding his little girl with flashcards and activities.

“You can say I was a bit like a tiger parent back then; I just wanted my kids to be smart and successful,” says the forty-something Chan.

But it all changed when he became interested in a holistic lifestyle, quit his job as a commercial buyer and began to to learn about the Waldorf education philosophy championed by Austrian Rudolf Steiner.  

Chan and his wife, Kitty Lam Lok-ting, were so taken by the Waldorf model, which emphasises raising children in an unhurried, no-pressure environment, they decided to homeschool their daughters according to its tenets.