Demographic shift in Hong Kong’s schools
More English-speaking students in Cantonese language public schools
HONG KONG— For generations, Hong Kong’s prestigious international schools exclusively educated the children of wealthy Western expatriates. Today, placement in those schools is increasingly competitive and enrolment fees can exceed $1 million, making them some of the most expensive private schools in the world.
Recent changes to the city’s demography — prompted by Chinese politics and global markets — have driven up tuitions and resulted in a dramatic shift in the complexion of the city’s schools: an increasing number of ethnic Chinese students are now enrolled in international schools, and many more white students are occupying desks in Cantonese-language public schools.
“Private schools here are bloody expensive you know, and we have twins,” said James Runciman, a Briton, shop owner and father of two 6-year-olds who are set to begin second grade in September. “We just can’t afford to send our kids to these schools,” he said of the private international schools, which replicate the curricula of Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada and France.
As students return to school next month, there will be more white students in public schools than at any time in the city’s history, a telling indicator of how Hong Kong is both shaking off its colonial past but also losing its draw as a magnet for the West’s wealthiest workers.
Last year, 818 white students were enrolled in the city’s public schools, according to the Hong Kong Education Bureau, which labels all white students “white” regardless of nationality or self-identification. That number represents a small fraction of the overall public school population but is indicative of a 44 per cent increase from 2013, when only 556 white children attended public schools.
Robert Adamson, a professor of curriculum reform at the Education University of Hong Kong, said white students were increasingly attending public schools because they had been priced out of the city’s international schools by a newly rich immigrant constituency: mainland Chinese.
“International schools are in high demand from a new mar- ket — mainland China — and fees have increased considerably in recent years,” Adamson said.
“Thus, some traditional students are struggling to gain access and, therefore, look to local schools instead.”
Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control from Britain in 1997, has long been considered Asia’s pre-eminent financial hub. Still, after a decline in expatriate whites following the 1997 handover, the city has seen a boost in its white population in the last decade.
As China has opened its economy, many foreigners have come to Hong Kong looking to open — and work for — businesses eager to gain access to both China’s enormous mar- kets and its inexpensive goods and services. Between 2006 and 2016, the number of white residents increased by 60 per cent, to 58,209 from 36,384. The government tracks the number of “whites” as an “ethnic minority” in the city, but its statistics do not break down by nationality.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, Western firms have been less willing to offer employees goldplated relocation packages. And white workers in the city are no longer just bankers, but also small-business owners, middle managers at tech startups and baristas in coffee shops.
“Many low- and middle-management people are not given the same packages when asked to move here,” said Jacqueline Cohen, an American who moderates a parents group on Facebook for expatriates with children in public schools.
But as expatriate packages have declined, prices at international schools have increased. Tuition at international schools can exceed $42,000 a year-Increasingly, many of the students at international schools are Hong Kong locals or the children of mainland Chinese parents. Foreign students once made up 100 per cent of those schools’ populations. In 2017, however, foreigners accounted for less than 75 per cent of students at primary international schools. Local students accounted for 21.6 per cent of the student body, and “non-local Chinese,” a Hong Kong government designation for mainlanders, made up about 4 per cent, according to the Education Bureau.
Hong Kong prides itself on being a diverse, international city but it is also largely segregated — not by law but by custom.
For many white parents, however, a Chinese-language education is an added reason to send their children to public schools and a chance for them to better integrate in the city.
“We consciously put our children into Cantonese schools,” said Cohen, whose children are 11 and 12.
“They need to know the language to be a full member of Hong Kong.”
Katherine Ferreira, Runciman’s wife and the mother of twins, Vicente and Florencia, 6, also said learning Cantonese was an important factor in deciding to enrol her children in public schools.
“This is a different continent, so I saw it as a good chance to learn a new language,” said Ferreira, who is from Chile. “If they’re going to learn a language, now’s the moment.”