What brought John Lee’s alma mater to the brink of shutting down?

Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu’s alma mater was already struggling with major weaknesses that hurt enrolment, such as a small, remote campus and poor sanitation in the surrounding area, before the school was prevented from running a subsidised Primary One class.

The Five Districts Business Welfare Association School, which has operated for 69 years, was among the 15 schools that failed to secure 16 Primary One pupils each to qualify for subsidies for the coming academic year.

Fourteen of the affected primary education institutions are required to submit survival plans for approval. They can either merge with other schools or operate Primary One classes on a self-financing basis, or they face closure after three years.

Lee graduated from the Five Districts Business Welfare Association School in 1970, before going on to study at Wah Yan College (Kowloon), an elite secondary school.

The South China Morning Post on Wednesday reviewed the primary school’s 2025-28 development plan, including a “SWOT” analysis to identify its “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats”.

Outlining factors that led to low enrolment, the school wrote: “The campus is smaller than most other schools in the district, and its location is relatively remote, far from the [nearest MTR] station.