Hong Kong schools are being forced to merge or prepare for closure as a decade-long decline in the birthrate and a recent exodus of residents from the city has led to a plunge in student numbers.
Local media have reported that at least five schools face closure in coming years after they failed to reach the minimum 16 enrolments in the first grade. There have been two recent cases of schools merging with each other due to insufficient student numbers.
The secretary of the city’s education department, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, on Saturday flagged that “maybe there are some others coming”.
“We are still communicating with different school sponsoring bodies,” said Choi.
Education department data shows a steady decline in kindergarten student numbers since 2015, from about 185,000 down to almost 156,000 in 2021/22. Primary school enrolments also dropped, from 373,000 in 2019/20 to 364,000 in 2020/21, and to about 349,000 the next year.
In March, the private Tak Nga Primary School told parents it would stop teaching Primary One classes from 2024-25 and would close completely in 2028, the South China Morning Post reported.
“Since 2018, the school has failed to admit sufficient pupils because of the falling birth rate in Hong Kong, and the problem is further aggravated by the emigration wave in recent years,” the school’s funding body reportedly said in a letter to parents.
In April, the South China Morning Post reported that four international education organisations had been warned they faced termination of their operating agreements after they failed to enrol the minimum 70% non-local students, some for a second year.
On Tuesday the paper – citing anonymous principles – reported five schools across Hong Kong were now facing closure.
Hong Kong’s birthrate is one of the lowest in the world, and like several countries across east Asia is facing the demographic crisis of an ageing population. Apart from an increase measured from 2003 to 2011, the live birthrate has steadily fallen from 35 per 1,000 population in 1961 down to 5.2 per 1,000 population in 2021. Government efforts, including financial inducements and tax relief, have failed to turn the rate around.
The issue has been exacerbated by an exodus of residents and expats from Hong Kong, driven by the pandemic, and the government’s crackdown on dissent and political freedom.
One person working in the education sector said that because teachers were among the people leaving, the pending closures were perhaps not having a huge impact on the overall number of teaching jobs available, but there were concerns that there would not be enough qualified teachers for secondary classes, which will be the last to shrink.
Almost 12,000 teachers have resigned from Hong Kong schools since 2021, according to the education department.
Additional research by Chi Hui Lin
