Nearly a quarter of 79 kindergartens inspected by the Education Bureau were found to have violated pre-primary curriculum guidelines by subjecting pupils to various forms of drilling. According to the bureau’s quality assessment report, some nursery students were given writing drills, while some in an older class had to do dictation. Other pupils even had to sit exams or take assessments. Such practices do not match the development needs of children needs and must be stopped immediately, said the report.

Tuesday, Sing Tao Daily

Taxi licence price drops below HK$6 million after last year’s high

The cost of a taxi licence dropped to HK$5.925 million in January at one point, down 18 per cent from the record of HK$7.25 million in May last year, due to factors such as intense competition from car-hailing app Uber and rising US interest rates. While some investors have reportedly sold their licences after losing money from stocks, Ma Ah-muk, who owns hundreds of minibuses in the city, has bought more than 30 taxi licences since the middle of last year, being confident about the industry’s outlook.

Wednesday, Apple Daily

Resistance to plan to shut town Sham Shui Po cooked food stalls

Cooked food stall owners at the 40-year-old Yu Chau West Street cooked food hawker bazaar in Sham Shui Po have said “no” to a government plan to take back the venue and turn it into other commercial premises. An Audit Commission report last year cited a high ratio of vacant cooked food stalls there but district councillor Chum Tak-shing said the government was confused about shop vacancy and customer use. He said that although only three of 26 stall spaces were in operation, the place is packed with diners, especially during breakfast and lunch hours.

Thursday, Ming Pao Daily

Pharmacy salesman avoids jail for selling lookalike products

A 37-year-old salesman at a Mong Kok pharmacy has been fined HK$20,000 and sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended for two years, for selling lookalike products to two customs officers posing as mainland tourists in September last year, in contravention of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance. The court was told that the officers asked for Trumpet Brand Seirogan Gastrointinal Pills and Ricqles Peppermint Cure, but were offered cheaper lookalikes and told the items were what they were asking for. Kwan Kin-keung, who heads the Customs and Excise Department’s unfair trade practice investigation group, said it was the heaviest penalty for this type of offence.

Friday, The Sun

Well-known nail polish product removed from shelves

A nail polish product, part of the well-known brand OPI, has been removed from shelves at large cosmetics chains in the city, after Taiwan authorities found 83 times the safety limit of cancer-causing formaldehyde in the product. The Taiwanese agency for the product, Glitzerland NL Z19, issued a press release in response, saying the product sample tested came from a parallel-import product.