6,500 teachers quit Hong Kong schools in last academic year, bringing total to nearly 12,000 since 2021

Education Bureau figures provided to lawmakers also showed 17,000 kindergarten and primary school students withdrew from their schools in the past academic year, contrary to beliefs that the impact of a wave of emigration would have eased.

According to the bureau, 6,550 of the 72,374 teachers at subsidised or government-run kindergartens and primary, secondary and special needs schools resigned or retired in the 2021-22 academic year. In the preceding year, 5,270 of the 73,118 teachers left.

The bureau also revealed 3,540 of those 6,550 teachers resigned from primary and secondary schools before reaching their retirement age, up by nearly 30 per cent compared with the year before.

The wastage represented turnover rates of 9 per cent and 7 per cent in the two years respectively. On average, about 3,600 teachers resigned or retired annually before the emigration wave started in 2021.

A breakdown by sectors showed the turnover rate reached 17.6 per cent in kindergartens, 8.5 per cent in primary schools and 9.8 per cent at secondaries.