Pauline Ngan backs Po Leung Kuk's plans to open schools in China
A modern woman who left village traditions behind says Hong Kong-style schools on the mainland would help keep families together
Pauline Ngan Po-ling, the former chairwoman of Po Leung Kuk and a mother of two boys, supports the charity's desire to run Hong Kong-style kindergartens and schools on the mainland to ease the need for schools for cross-border pupils and children born in Hong Kong to mainland parents.
Ngan was born in a village in southern Fujian , where women were expected to be domestic and traditional. Her unconventional personality was a right match for China's opening-up and Hong Kong's free economy when she arrived in the city in 1980. Today she is deputy chairwoman of one of the world's largest hat makers, Mainland Headwear, and a Hong Kong delegate to the National People's Congress.
Some mainland parents plan to leave their Hong Kong-born children in the SAR with relatives and friends to enjoy local compulsory education. As a mother, I realise that can cause great harm to children's physical and mental development. The best way to solve the problem is, first, to allow those children to live with their parents and to provide them with the Hong Kong model education simultaneously. Po Leung Kuk is interested in running preschools in Shenzhen.