Ken Ng Is the King of Cram Schools and Celebrity Tutors
Known as “Ken Sir,” he founded lucrative franchise Modern Education—but he stepped down as chairman three years ago.
I went to Canada for university. I studied at the University of Alberta, majoring in fine arts. When I got back to Hong Kong, I started teaching English in a school. I also tutored on the side, and it made me a lot more money than my day job. But it wasn’t just about the money— I wanted to help the students. There was a great demand for tutors, as at that time many school teachers weren’t good at teaching English.
Hong Kong’s education system is still exam-oriented. If people say that’s not true, they are lying. If you’re one point below the threshold, you won’t be able to get into university. Of course, I do appreciate and respect teachers in schools, as they need to handle many more duties, including moral education and other all-round development of students. But the most important thing for a student under this system is still getting good grades.
I really appreciate how they teach in international schools. They have a more holistic approach. Grades are important, but they’re not everything. Being a surgeon or being a postman: Both are still respected occupations in society.
Teaching English exam skills is different from teaching English, and I think it’s easier to teach exam skills. You can’t really learn to speak good English at a cram school. We can teach you the skills for exams, but for good English you need interactions with native speakers.
I wanted to be innovative, to be the forerunner. That’s always been what drives me. I wasn’t trying to be the “King of Cram Schools.” I think I could succeed even if I were selling wonton noodles. The most important thing is to be creative in solving big problems. Being hard-working is not enough.
I think my biggest breakthrough is that I broke the segregation between good schools and bad schools. For students who got sorted into not-so-good schools, there wouldn’t be any great teachers to train them to take exams. And the student’s fate, of whether they could get into university, relied on that. So I hired the best teachers from the best schools like Queen’s College and La Salle College, and now you could be taught by them, no matter what school you went to.