Coronavirus: parents fear quarantine rules will discriminate against cross-border pupils when Hong Kong schools reopen

Parents of cross-border pupils fear their children will be discriminated against when Hong Kong schools reopen, with most saying it would be unfair if quarantine rules stopped the students from attending classes, according to a survey.

The city’s schools are closed until at least March 16 as part of the government’s emergency response to the health crisis, which has hit daily life and businesses hard.

But the cross-border students, who are permanent residents of Hong Kong, may not be able to return on the same day as their peers who live locally if the 14-day mandatory quarantine rules imposed on anyone entering the city from the mainland remain in force when classes resume.

A survey released on Wednesday by the non-governmental organisation International Social Service Hong Kong Branch (ISS-HK) found more than 56 per cent of the 3,000 cross-border families polled said it would be unreasonable if their children were unable to return to Hong Kong for the reopening of schools.

Of those, nearly 64 per cent worried about their children suffering discrimination at the hands of other students if cross-border pupils were the only ones not going back to school.

Eighty per cent of the responses to the poll, which was conducted between February 7 and 12, are from mainland parents with children born in Hong Kong. The rest are from families with one or both parents having Hong Kong residency and living on the mainland.

Among the city’s cross-border pupils is 11-year-old Li Xiang-fei, who attends a primary school in the New Territories town of Tuen Mun and left Shenzhen on the other side of the border for Hong Kong with his mother two weeks ago. The Primary Six student was born in Hong Kong to mainland parents.