Hong Kong’s education chief declines to meet parents calling for local school to keep Primary One classes
- Secretary for Education Christine Choi opted not to meet group of parents and pupils asking her to refrain from axing local school’s Primary One classes
- Education Bureau expresses regret that group refused to discuss matter inside venue in Lok Fu, after sending representative to collect petition
Hong Kong’s education chief has declined to meet about a dozen parents and students petitioning her not to axe Primary One classes at a local school after it failed to enrol the necessary number of pupils.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin on Saturday opted not to meet the group of parents and pupils from Po Yan Oblate Primary School, who waited for her outside an institution in Lok Fu where she was attending an event in the morning.
Hours later, the Education Bureau said it regretted that the relevant school stakeholders had rejected the government’s offer to discuss the matter inside the venue as it was “not ideal for schoolchildren to be exposed to hot weather for an extended period of time”.
The Po Yan Oblate Primary School in Wong Tai Sin is among five schools that will not receive government grants to operate Primary One classes from the next academic year after they failed to meet the requirement of enrolling at least 16 pupils for the grade.
Two of the five institutions were later approved by the bureau to run the classes on a private basis.
The 58-year-old institution earlier announced it had only managed to enrol 15 Primary One students. Education authorities had also rejected its application for a special review.
Parents and students on Saturday had signs saying “Po Yan is my home” and “I implore the minister to give back Primary One places at Po Yan” as they waited outside for Choi.
The bureau responded by sending a representative to receive the group’s petition, but the parents were not satisfied.