EditorialStruggling Hong Kong schools should heed call to plan ahead
Schools with dwindling enrolment face hard choices and would do well to start considering a merger with other institutions
Behind the figures are individual school communities looking at closures or mergers with complex emotions. While the outcome does not come as a surprise to those that have been struggling to survive in recent years, there is more than sorrow and nostalgia involved. For teachers, parents and pupils, the problem extends beyond acquiring a new school uniform or teaching at a different campus next year. Hard choices have to be made.
The government has rightly sought to soften the impact of under-enrolment with financial support and grace periods for consolidation. Additionally, merged schools will be allowed a one-time exemption from submitting survival plans if they fail to admit enough pupils to operate one Primary One class in the first three years of the merger.
The plea by the authorities for schools to plan ahead should be taken seriously. For schools that have had trouble securing the minimum intake in recent years, the issue is no longer whether they will be affected, but when and how. Instead of waiting until they are faced with a fait accompli, struggling institutions would do well to consider a merger as early as practicable.