Class dismissed: worse to come for Hong Kong schools as closures loom amid falling births, migration
- Parents saddened as school fails in fight for survival after too few choose to start Primary One there
- Educators expect more trouble ahead as number of babies born fell to a record low of 32,500 last year
Housewife Cheng Sze-lai took her children to join a dozen other parents and their children to petition Hong Kong’s education minister last month about a school threatened with closure.
The group held up large white sheets with messages that said “I love Po Yan” and “Po Yan is my home”.
The fate of Po Yan Oblate Primary School in Wong Tai Sin hung in the balance after fewer than 16 children enrolled for Primary One in the new academic year.
Falling below that minimum meant the school no longer qualified for government subsidies, a signal that it would have to close, merge with another school or raise substantial funds to keep going on its own.
Cheng, 36, a former student of Po Yan, has three children of her own and is the legal guardian of a nephew and niece. Three of the children are already in the school, and she hoped her six-year-old middle child would go there too.
She said the school welcomed children with special education needs and ethnic minorities too. It had cared well for her 11-year-old nephew with mild autism, and the boy’s performance had improved steadily between Primary One and Primary Four.