At least 31 subsidised whole-day kindergartens raised the fees by 20 per cent or more, including one in Shau Kei Wan that hiked yearly tuition charges by 150 per cent, from HK$4,800 to HK$12,000.

“It’s meaningless to calculate the increase in tuition fees in percentage because our fees are quite low,” Wu Mei-hang, the principal of Women’s Welfare Club Western District Hong Kong David Woo Memorial Kindergarten, said.

“Parents just need to pay HK$1,000 per month, which is quite low compared to other schools in the district.”

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But the kindergarten had already increased its tuition fee by 410 per cent the previous academic year, from HK$941 to HK$4,800, meaning an increase of 560 per cent in two years.

The average tuition fee of Eastern district kindergartens offering whole-day services under the free education scheme is about HK$10,400 for the 2019/20 school year.

Wu explained that the school had to increase fees to pay teachers’ salaries, which were the biggest expenses: “If the government can directly subsidise teachers’ salaries then the burden to increase tuition fees will not be as high. If they do so, we can drastically lower fees.”

A kindergarten in Tuen Mun raised its whole-day tuition fee by 214 per cent to HK$8,000 this academic year, which is less than the average of HK$10,600 in the district.

To balance the books, Lam Yuet Ho, principal of Lui Cheung Kwong Lutheran Kindergarten, said the school “had no choice” but to increase the charges.

“The Education Bureau allowed us to raise fees after seeing our financial statements. It’s impossible for us to keep operating like this and they understand our needs,” she said.

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The Free Quality Kindergarten Education Scheme, which came into effect from the 2017/18 school year, gives eligible non-profit kindergartens a basic subsidy between HK$35,110 and HK$56,180 per student per annum to cover salaries and other operating costs.

A rental subsidy is also provided. For example, kindergartens renting from the open market will be subsidised 50 per cent of the open market rental rate or 15 per cent of the basic subsidy for kindergartens with half-day services, whichever is lower.

However, some kindergartens in the programme, like Shau Kei Wan Methodist Kindergarten, are still struggling to stay afloat.

The school joined the scheme when it was rolled out two years ago, but has made year-on-year losses.

“We cannot cover our cost of operation. The deficit was already bad the first year, but the second year was worse. We’re incurring losses of hundreds of thousands,” Fok Siu-fung, the school’s principal, said.

Despite dipping into emergency funds to cover costs and submitting an appeal to the Education Bureau to ask for more money, Fok said the school “absolutely will not” withdraw from the scheme: “We will die faster without government support.”

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Education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen admitted the existing scheme was unsustainable and needed to be revised.

“We had suggested that the subsidies should be calculated according to the actual expenses of the schools to ensure that more experienced teachers with higher salaries did not suffer, but the government did not accept the proposal,” he said.

“The other possibility is to provide a fixed salary scale for the teachers, so they can be secured with reasonable remuneration.”

Separately, the Education Bureau approved applications for a rise in tuition fees from 157 of 257 kindergartens outside the scheme.

The kindergarten at Yew Chung International School in Kowloon Tong is the most expensive of the lot, charging HK$208,318 in yearly fees for whole-day classes.

Additional reporting by Peace Chiu