Free kindergarten places for some, but not all
Parents say education for young children still costs them big
The newly introduced free kindergarten policy has been touted as “free,” but parents left out in the cold have criticised that as not giving the complete picture. About 20 per cent of them – whose children do not attend the kindergartens benefitting from the policy and those attending whole-day sessions, which are not covered – still need to pay part of the tuition fees.
Happy Lee, whose three-year-old daughter will enter kindergarten next year, said as a full-time single mother she would need to find a job soon to afford her daughter’s education. And doing so would require her to put her daughter in whole-day session.
“Education is very important and it needs a lot of money,” said Lee. “I hope the government can give more support to working parents.”
Eric Yan Ka-keung, father of a three-year-old boy, said he feared that kindergartens would raise tuition fees after the government subsidy, defeating the purpose of the free kindergarten policy.
Yan said he had decided to send his son into a private kindergarten, which would not benefit from the subsidies, to stay away from the government-funded system. He urged the government to spend money on improving the public education system.
Tsui Sau-ling, supervisor of Epoch Anglo-Chinese Kindergarten in North Point, said with the extra funding the kindergarten could now afford to raise teachers’ salaries.