- School bodies say cut to ‘door-knocking’ places at popular primaries could help tackle under-enrolment and risk of closure at other schools
- Some experts say change would also halt ‘musical chairs’ as parents try to get their children into more popular schools
Discretionary places in primary classes could be slashed in a bid to protect schools threatened with closure. Photo: Elson LiEducation authorities in Hong Kong are set to accept a proposal to axe more than 1,000 classroom places that parents can apply for at preferred schools in a bid to tackle the problem of under-enrolment and risk of closure for less popular ones.
The proposal to halve the present two discretionary places in each class was raised by two influential primary school councils.
Parents of children starting primary and secondary education can approach their preferred school if they are unhappy with central allocation results – known as “door-knocking”.
2 Hong Kong primary schools scheduled to merge because of falling enrolment
Each class in more than 80 per cent of primary schools has two vacancies for children who need to repeat a year. But most public schools traditionally use them to admit “door-knocking pupils” as they are allowed to pick applicants.
Langton Cheung Yung-pong, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Aided Primary School Heads Association and a head teacher, said the proposed cut could help schools threatened with closure by falling enrolment.
“But we do not think it is right to scrap all door-knocking places in one go, as this will go against the existing arrangement that has been in place for years,” he said.
“Some parents and schools may still find the places necessary.”
One of the councils expected more than 1,000 discretionary places would go if the reduction plan was adopted.
The Education Bureau is expected to make a decision before the central place allocation results are announced on June 6.
The news came as the number of pupils applying for Primary One admission to public schools this year fell 10 per cent from 48,080 to 43, 755 in the last academic year.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin earlier told the legislature that the bureau planned to reduce the number of discretionary places over time.
Hong Kong has about 1,700 Primary One classes in public schools.
Vu Im-fan, chairwoman of the Subsidised Primary Schools Council, said the bureau consulted it earlier this year.
“We told the bureau the number of door-knocking places could be slashed by half, or one in every class,” Vu said.
She added that the council hoped a reduction would “minimise the impact of musical chairs” caused by pupils moving schools.
Vu said she was optimistic about the proposal being accepted by the bureau.
So Ping-fai, vice-chairman of the council, said he was told the proposal had not run into strong opposition by parent groups.
But he said the bureau told the sector it might need to consult school sponsoring bodies over the proposals.
So said he also expected the actual number of places scrapped would be around 1,000 as only popular schools might need to use the door-knocking places to admit pupils.
He added many schools faced a fight for survival over the next few years.
So noted that five schools had already been told they could not operate subsidised Primary One classes from the start of the new academic year in September after they failed to meet enrolment requirements.
Two of them have been approved to run private Primary One classes and another was given permission to rejoin the admission system from 2024-25.
A fourth has applied for a review to see if it is good enough to be kept and the last is in merger discussions with another school.
Chu Kwok-keung, a lawmaker who represents the education sector, agreed the bureau was likely to accept the reduced spaces plan.
“Some elite schools like picking their preferred students by ‘door-knocking’ and it is better for the bureau to let schools know the new arrangements as soon as possible,” said Chu, who is also a primary school principal.
The city’s school population has been hit by a double whammy of falling birth rates and an emigration wave.
The number of births has dropped for six years in a row and only 32,500 babies were born in 2022.
Statistics have also shown that some parents would opt to sign up for non-public primary education in places such as international schools when their children reached the age of five.
SCMP earlier reported that more than 33,600 pupils left city schools in the last academic year as part of the emigration wave, an increase of 10 per cent on 2020-21.