On education equality, Hong Kong policymakers must do their homework

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu visited one of the schools offering free after-school care for low-income families last month. After receiving positive feedback from participants, he pledged to extend the programme to benefit more families. Lee said it had helped promote family harmony, with children also reporting “positive development in both academic and social aspects”. There’s little doubt we should celebrate victories, however small, but it is equally important to examine problems comprehensively. The School-based After-School Care Service Scheme, as it is officially known, is a targeted poverty alleviation measure. It aims to help families struggling with childcare and unable to work longer hours and earn more income. In tackling poverty, this is only one of many measures that must work in concert with others. Having more time to work, with the peace of mind that comes from knowing your child is in good care and schoolwork is being attended to, no doubt alleviates the pressures many families face. But are the children given opportunities to pursue extracurricular interests under this programme? Besides helping them get their homework done, can the scheme offer them more, such as organised sports or training in the arts? The government must do more to provide the children with opportunities that poor families cannot afford. An interesting conversation happened during Lee’s visit. One child asked him whether he had ever failed to hand in a homework assignment. Lee’s response was: “I’m super diligent. I don’t think there was enough homework.” Maybe Lee didn’t have enough homework growing up. However, students today don’t need more homework. Health authorities have said they need more exercise if anything. More time and space to play and engage in sports is preferable to more homework, which would keep them sedentary for longer periods of time. And what is the government doing to raise wages for working parents? To be fair, it has framed the scheme as targeted poverty alleviation, which is not necessarily poverty reduction. Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the Society for Community Organisations, is in favour of expanding the scheme to benefit more lower-income families. That’s because she understands that activities outside school such as tutorials and interest classes are expensive and “can be a big burden for even middle-class families”. What Sze said goes to the heart of the problem to which authorities have turned a blind eye. The emphasis on homework, exams and academic achievement has come at a cost, and it is being offloaded onto families. Lee has spoken of unleashing the power of women in the workforce. Advocates stress this must include mothers, as little has been done to help middle-class women, stifled by familial responsibilities, pursue careers. The pay gap and the motherhood penalty remain realities for women in Hong Kong. Given how Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin refuses to acknowledge the emotional and other resources that go towards ensuring children excel, and suggests that the city’s “free” education is actually an incentive for childbearing, we know the government hasn’t done its homework. Furthermore, what do education authorities do when presented with the cold, hard fact that an increasing number of families are sending their children to international schools while local schools are facing closure due to low enrolment? They go after international schools for accepting too many local students, rather than trying to figure out why the local system is not as competitive for those who can afford not to be incentivised by the “free” education provided by the government. The government must offer comprehensive, holistic solutions to problems that span policy bureaus. Piecemeal solutions may alleviate some woes, but they do not go far enough. The government should be giving itself more challenging assignments, it seems. Perhaps it takes a task force of some sort to pull this off, like we are seeing in the government’s response to the astronomical fuel prices spurred by the conflict in the Middle East. Early this month, Hong Kong made international headlines for having the highest petrol prices in the world. But the government had already announced it would start tracking fuel prices from this month. Soon afterwards, the cross-departmental task force that had been monitoring prices proposed measures like diesel subsidies and reduced tunnel tolls for the transport sector. We should ask the government to establish a task force on family well-being. That way, we may well have more comprehensive policies that truly support families in the city.

On education equality, Hong Kong policymakers must do their homework

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Authorities should think through how to promote students’ and families’ well-being in a system geared towards academic achievement

Authorities should think through how to promote students’ and families’ well-being in a system geared towards academic achievement