Education trust boosts Chinese skills of Hong Kong ethnic minority pupils
IBET programme educates and empowers children from households of modest means and is the first to directly address lack of support for second-language learners
That ethnic minority educational support is an important, yet slow-to-evolve, agenda item for the Legislative Council and the Education Bureau is a well-known fact. And while there are a handful of organisations lobbying for policy change, none have gone out of their way to tackle the underlying challenges directly. Well, not until a few months ago when the Integrated Brilliant Education Trust (IBET) was set up.
IBET is not a school but a programme to support the local school curriculum. The first ethnic minority education support centre of its kind, it tailors its offerings to meet the individual needs of each student. Parents of students struggling in mainstream schools couldn't be more thrilled with this approach.
"Learning Chinese is difficult at local schools because our children just don't have any additional support," says Dinesh Subba, who has a child going to IBET in Jordan. "The centre has an excellent atmosphere for studying, the fees are very reasonable and the children are learning."
For secondary school students, the IBET advantage is even more marked.
"Already at [a] younger age, the children find that they cannot cope with school studies," says Rajalaxmi, another parent. "As they go to higher classes, it becomes even more difficult. Here, at the Jordan centre, my child can actually get his homework done. He learns… it all works out very nicely."
