How a Hong Kong charity plucks top university graduates to teach in underprivileged schools

In an effort to tackle education inequality in Hong Kong, a local charity is placing top university graduates as teachers in underprivileged schools for the third straight academic year. Teach4HK has taught over 7,000 pupils since it kicked off in 2014. That year, the group placed six fellows in three schools. The programme has expanded rapidly: this academic year, there are 24 fellows in 12 partner schools across the city, and next year the aim is to place 40 fellows. Underprivileged children get targeted. At least half the schools’ pupils must hail from families receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, a government welfare programme. It was founder and CEO Arnold Chan who perceived an unmet need in the city. “As I grew up and met more friends from underprivileged backgrounds, I realised their talents weren’t being captured by the exam system, and they’re defined as failures,” he says. Chan understands the value of opportunity. A former pupil of highly selective boys’ secondary school La Salle College, he obtained a degree in global business at the Chinese University of Hong Kong before working in sales for Goldman Sachs, the investment banking giant. “I know the opportunity of quality, or well-exposed, education,” Chan, 28, explains. “I was just lucky.” The idea for Teach4HK came to him as he divided free time between socialising with wealthy colleagues and visiting pupils’ families in subdivided flats and volunteer teaching. Chan came to the conclusion that Hong Kong’s wide wealth gap needed to be closed. Access Hong Kong connects volunteers with local students to make summer classes and learning English fun After volunteering for Teach for China, a similar programme on the mainland, and studying at Harvard Business School, he started up a model for Hong Kong. Operating over a 10-month scheme, Teach4HK grants fellows monthly stipends of HK$10,000 . Official statistics show 281,000 children live below the poverty line in Hong Kong, which comes to a child poverty rate of about 26 per cent. Only one in 10 of these children is admitted to university, compared with half of the children of well-off families. Some 50 of the city’s lowest band schools, which mainly educate those from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not send anyone to university. With such a lack of knowledge of the world, of Hong Kong, how can they survive and escape the poverty trap? Teach4HK CEO Arnold Chan A key problem is their lack of exposure, Chan claims. Teach4HK tries to tackle this disparity by taking children to new places, events and companies to expand their horizons. He describes a school trip to Causeway Bay, an area some of the children had never even heard of. “With such a lack of knowledge of the world, of Hong Kong, how can they survive and escape the poverty trap?” he asks. “That is what we want to focus on.” One of the biggest challenges is the pupils’ lack of motivation. Matthew Kwok, 22, a fellow teaching at St Bonaventure Catholic Primary School in Kowloon, observes: “They don’t think English is an important language. They don’t really know what the use of it is, so ask why they have to study it, and have no incentive.” The Chinese University law graduate says he phones parents to discuss their child’s progress, and often finds they want to help, but, lacking education or exposure themselves, they do not know how. By uploading teaching videos to YouTube each day for pupils to watch at home, Kwok hopes to help parents work with the school to motivate their children. But he can only go the extra mile because he has time. Fellows teach a mere 10 to 12 lessons per week, compared with local teachers’ load of 25 to 30 lessons over the same period. All work and no play: why more Hong Kong children are having mental health problems Fellow Raymond Yang, 23, teaches alongside Kwok and expresses sympathy for the permanent instructors’ plight. “Other teachers are heavily burdened. They just don’t have time to do what we do,” Yang says. “We have the energy to think, understand and try, but I totally understand why some of the other teachers don’t.” A lack of resources, he adds, compounds a heavy workload for teachers in Hong Kong and means they cannot respond to individual pupils’ needs. But through Teach4HK’s efforts, Chan aspires to “create a change in mentality” among the children. As the fellows are young, and don’t follow a strict curriculum, they are well-received by pupils, Kwok notes. Even if the children are not initially interested in a subject, “they are interested in my teaching and that is already a step to success,” he says.

How a Hong Kong charity plucks top university graduates to teach in underprivileged schools

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Formerly employed by Goldman Sachs, Teach4HK founder argues that exposing pupils to new experiences can help them dream bigger

Formerly employed by Goldman Sachs, Teach4HK founder argues that exposing pupils to new experiences can help them dream bigger