Education gap threatens poor Hong Kong children
While international schools offer expensive activities, impoverished families struggle to meet the education needs of their children
To many schoolchildren, summer holidays are the time for travel and fun, but Li Wendi’s three children, aged between seven and 17, have never been to any outlying island or museum because the five-member family living in Tin Shui Wai is too poor to afford the transport costs.
The family lives solely on the monthly HK$15,000 income of Li’s husband, a freelance construction worker, which means after paying the monthly rent of HK$2,300, each family member has only about HK$85 per day to pay for food, clothes, water, electricity and other daily necessities. While some international schools offer in-town summer programmes that charge up to HK$7,000, and out-of-town summer camps costing almost HK$17,000, working-class families compete for a subsidy of just HK$1,500 per child per year to fund extracurricular activities.
“The government should subsidise poor families so their children can join afterschool activities to widen their horizon,” said Catlyn Ho Yu-ying, community organiser for the Alliance for Children Development Rights. “Otherwise, the education gap between children from rich and poor families will widen, pushing poor children further to the margins of society.”
Li’s family has been receiving the HK$1,500 since last year for the three children’s afterschool activities, but she said competition for it was fierce and a family was therefore unlikely to get the subsidy every year.
She used the money for her two daughters to take up dancing and her son to learn swimming for two to three months, after which the money ran out.
During summer holidays, the children have nowhere to go but the local library, because there is no museum in Tin Shui Wai. For visits to other places, it would cost Li and her three children more than HK$100 for a round trip.
“I always hope we have more money to let our children see more and learn more,” said Li. “They have been feeling inferior to their classmates, who go to so many places and learn so many skills. My two daughters are older so they understand this, but my little son often cries and asks why he cannot be like his classmates. At that point I can only bring him to a McDonald’s and buy a happy meal to comfort him.”