St Margaret's Girls' College priced out of Sheung Wan
Priced out of its Sheung Wan campus, St Margaret's Girls' College is told it can have a temporary home in Sha Tin - if it stops enrolling pupils
The future of a 49-year-old secondary school in Sheung Wan hangs in the balance as its rent reaches unaffordable levels.
Parents will meet lawmakers next Monday to ask the government to find the school a permanent location as soon as possible.
The school's board chairman Eddie Lei Kwok-kit said the monthly rent went up from HK$200,000 to HK$350,000 in 2011. He said school administrators had decided not to renew the lease, which expires on August 31, as consultants had told them the rent would probably be raised to more than HK$400,000 this time.
"If we renew the lease, we'll have to raise tuition fees," Lei said. "But 70 per cent of our pupils are from an ethnic-minority background and many parents can't afford higher tuition fees."
Fees at the direct subsidy school range from HK$8,000 to HK$13,500 per year.
Lei said the government had given St Margaret's use for five years of a vacant campus in Sha Tin after a school closed. But it came on condition that it must stop enrolling new pupils.