ESF schools Futher $$$$

Shootastar

回復 HKTHK 的帖子

"Why should grants not be offered to non-PR foreigners or expats? They paid taxes too.  Why should their children not be entitled to education?  It is clear that all the foreign schools combined do not have sufficient spaces for expat families even with the current ESF policies.  If ESF does not offer preferences to expat families and the other international schools are full, which is the case today, what do you propose expat families do to educate their children?"

My comments: I have no position on whether non HKPR is entitled to education grant. It is another debatable issue. However, I wish to point out that for time being, our government has not extended the "medical benefit" or "housing benefit" to HKPR. Should they be entitled to same? Again it is another big issue to be debated.

Expatriates' students should be entitled to education. It is no doubt about that. Who said they are not entitled. What I want to say is their entitlement should not be used as a mean of discrimination against those who speak Cantonese and/or know how to write Chinese characters.

I cannot agree with that the current spaces are not sufficient for the expatriate families. If not, there are no so many local kids who could study in international schools in Hong Kong.

No one said expatriates' are not entitled to study at ESF or any school they choose. Their entitlement should not be a means to discriminate local kids.

"You seem very focused on the myth that since you are a tax-paying citizen, you should have equal rights to all services provided by the government. This is simply not true. The government does not provide the exact same services to all its citizens or residents.  I have no idea why one would have such expectation.  The government offers a stipend for the senior citizens.  That is age discrimination since others pay taxes and are not entitled to the money.  Do you find that unfair and feel that you have equal right to the stipend as well?"

My comments: You make a too generalised statement. We are talking about the right of being admitted to a school which receives public money. Everyone should have the same right but there is no such equal right afforded by ESF to my kids. To reply further to your generalised statement, even on the examples quoted, everyone has the same opportunity to attain the age of 65 and receive the same subvention or fruit moneys from Government.

HKTHK

Have you watched the video?  Or have you spoken with any expat families in HK?  It is very difficult to find a spot at international schools.  And this is with the ESF "discrimination policy" in place.  Imagine what happens if the policy is relaxed.  

alpham0m

This is my point of view.

So, lots of local parents lost faith in the local school system and would like their kid to be educated in a school like ESF which nurture learning and is affordable to most middle class, tax-paying families. However, we are not allowed to send them to ESF schols because we are supposed to send our kids to local schools as they can speak Cantonese. On the other hand, we don't want to live on just bread and butter or rice with just soy sauce by sending our kid to the more expensive international schools. So, we are stuck. Is that fair?

I also think the government should bring back the education vouchers at the same time lift the silly Cat1/2 system. Mr Leung should also allow more ESF schools to be built in order to cater for all expat and local kids who wish to go into ESF schools. Won't that be a happier situation for everyone? Good education should be available to everyone, I would call that德政 and if more of these polices are in place, perhaps people won't hate our government that much.

Shootastar

tcbobo

Congratulations!

ESF schools are great schools in deed.

My kids have graduated from or been studing in colleges. There is no need to apply for admission to ESF. Ten years ago, there were a lot of returning immigrants. Unless I lied, virtually the chance of being admitted was zero.

Shootastar

回復 HKTHK 的帖子

"Instead of arguing endlessly on various fronts, how about we get one question out of the way first.  For expat families who are bringing children up today and are about to enter primary 1 (similar to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7LRwZqmUeM&sns=em), what do you propose that they do?  GSIS, HKIS, French, .... are all full already or maybe their children did not qualify since they are from Ukraine (a random country with no international school affiliation).  Where are these Ukrainian kids going to get their education?"

My comments: In reality, there are only one or several isolated cases that the expatriates would bring the children to Hong Kong without first securing a place for them.Usually, they would make the applications to the schools one year ahead. I do not think ESF would give them place if they come to Hong Kong without making a lot of arrangement such as admission test etc.

Even if they come to Hong Kong without making prior arrangement, they can ask the Education Department to make arrangement to them to study in DSS or other governemnt schools for the ethnic minoirties. I do not think it right that because of one or several isolated cases (although I doubt very much they exist), we should not use this as to formulate a policy against the local kids who speak Cantonese or know how to Chinese characters if ESF uses government fund across the board.

Shootastar

回復 HKTHK 的帖子

"Have you watched the video?  Or have you spoken with any expat families in HK?  It is very difficult to find a spot at international schools.  And this is with the ESF "discrimination policy" in place.  Imagine what happens if the policy is relaxed."

My reply: I know a number of expatriates and I have friends who returned from Canada recently. He applied fto 3 IS including ESF for his son last year. ESF and another IS offered his son admission. Lastly he settled in the IS for personal reason. Seldom would the parents return or come to Hong Kong bringing their kids without making prior arrangement. I am worried that the cases quotes by you are isolated cases.

Of course, if you want to have a place immediately upon your arrival in Hong Kong, that cannot be done even if ESF put a more stringent discriminatory admission policy. It won't help him.

Shootastar

回復 HKTHK 的帖子

HKTHK

I would like to reply as follows:

"BTW, my kids don't go to ESF either and we have never applied for a spot "

I note you are in an impartial position because you and I have no interest in ESF. We can freely express our view (which I say) is impartial. That is why it is a pleasure to spend a lot of time to "debate" with the delicated parents here. After all, I have spent a lot of time on this issue and it is difficult to get all of us agree with each other. It is my last post on this issue.

What about the rights of expat families to an education


The expatriate families should have a right to an education, but they should not have a right built on the basis of discrimination against the local kids such as the admission policy of ESF. Have your hear any complaints about GSIS, HKIS, French International, CDNIS, Japanese International etc about their admission policy?


I think nintendo makes a good point about male vs female school.  Do you feel discriminated that boys cannot get into girls school?


You cannot choose (or you can with the updated scientific technology) to have male or female. So the chance of having a male and a female is equal. If you have a boy, he has an equal chance to be admitted to a boy school as the chance of other boys. Likewise, a girl has an equal chance to be admitted to a girl school. The right is  not compromised. However, a local kid is discriminated by ESF if he / she speaks Cantonese at home or know how to write Chinese. There is no problem for them to do so if they do not operate the school on government grant. If yes, my right is infringed and discriminated by its policy. Anyway, I have never heard any complaint that a boy is discriminated by DGS because of sex. Likewise, I have never heard any complaint that a girl is discriminated by DBS because of sex. On the other hand, I frequently hear that they are very good single sex schools.

cowmoon

Let's look at the situation from another perspective.

It is rather non-arguable about the historical background of ESF - to provide education service to expat from UK, who worked temporarily in HK (partly in HK government, partly in British companies). Their kids would only stay for a few years and then back to England with their parents posting back.
ESF education made sure that the kids would be able to fit well into British system after they went back. In a way, they also "protected" the kids from getting in touch with local culture. ESF was clearly a "colonial" facility. It was natural that the government would pay for it.

On the other hand, if we work in overseas (whether UK, US or other countries), we would not expect that the government would provide dedicated education for my kids so as to facilitate our "future-leaving".  On the contrary, most governments would welcome us to place our kids in local public education system (whether we need to pay extra tuition is another issue). They may also provide some additional service to make sure that my kids may work well in their local schools (e.g. ESL classes). Actually, most governments would like to have the new-comers culturally fit into the society asap, instead of the opposite. There is rare discussion that "my kids cannot fit into their education system JUST BECAUSE my kids cannot speak English".

However, if I refuse my kids to receive their public education, say I wish to ensure my kids can fit into HK education system after we transfer back, it would be my own problem. Say, it's very reasonable that the government have no obligation to provide subsidized Chinese or Chinese culture class to my kids. It would be nice if I can search for an IS that suit my need. It would be very nice if the government may facilitate my searching or ensure that I can get a place. But honestly, it's not their obligation.

For that perspective, we may conclude that a government subsidized ESF system is no longer valid in HK. As an international city, HK government just need to make sure that the foreigners may find a place in IS if they need. Policies in Mainland China or Taiwan may be references - they only allow foreigner kids to attend IS (private funding). All local citizens need to attend local schools (private or public).

Regarding the choice of HK parents, if a parent (whether local or not) does not like the local education system for his kids, in HK he already has the freedom to send his kids to private schools (may be IS like GSIS or PIS like RC or VSA). It is fair enough.

As a local parent, I would welcome ESF become one of PIS to give us more choices. However, it would not be because of whether my kids may learn Chinese or not; it's just because we want more choices other than local education system.

It would be rather weird that the government need to provide government funded education to those parents that do not wish their kids to learn Chinese/Cantonese.  It would be even more weird that the government would fund some schools that deliberately give preference to those local kids that do not want to learn Chinese/Cantonese.

I really hope that one day the relationship between Cantonese/Non-cantonese v.s. Local system/Non-local system would diminish.

HKTHK

回復 Shootastar 的帖子

I am afraid the reality is the other way around.  Other than many personal first-hand stories that I am aware of, the lack of international school spaces is widely recognized.

http://www.britcham.com/press/british-chamber-commerce-international-school-survey-2011
- 78% of businesses affected by staff not willing to relocate

http://www.britcham.com/sites/britcham/files/BCC%20BUSINESS%20CONFIDENCE%20RESULTS%20OF%20THE%202011%20SURVEY.pdf
- pg 8 of this survey shows that 15% of companies have staff with children waitlisted at international schools

http://www.amcham.org.hk/images/publicAffairs/2011%200916%20amcham%20ce%20policy%20submission%20%28final%29.pdf
- for Amcham, they have two complaints about HK, air pollution and lack of international school places

Maoku

回復 Shootastar 的帖子

Thanks, Shootastar for candid sharing of your views and being open.  


Further to the analogy of letting seats in MTR to the disabled which you agreed, let's ask ourselves this fundamental question:  

Whether kids who can only learn in English are disadvantaged or advantaged?  


If they are seen as disadvantaged than those who can learn in both language setting, it would be legitimate for the government to shoulder the responsibilities in supporting them through IS.  


Paradoxically, many parents would see that learning in English is superior and studying in IS is even a priviledged treatment.  This has caused the feeling of why not getting a fair chance to IS training place is jeopardizing their own rights.  But whether it is socially right, I think not, if we take the seats at the expense of those who are in real need.


Certainly, disadvantaged people should satisfy the same admission criteria to get to the universities.  But it is just the basic criteria that they have to meet.  Correct me if I am wrong, visually or audio impaired person are granted more time or even being exempted on certain part of the public examination which they are unable to satisfy due to physical impairment.    In extreme case, if two candidates compete for one seat which both meet the basic admission, the seat will be offered to the disabled.  In fact, I just come across a paper released by the Civic Exchange on the right to education by the disabled which advocated that the current status in HK is lagging behind in supporting the disabled.    http://www.civic-exchange.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/120319disability_en.pdf  Likewise, government also have preferential treatment in recruitment of most its posts in order to encourage the employment of disabled.  There is no such things as absolute equality, even if exist, it may create absurb results which is not socially desirable at all.



Having said that, I am not saying that the English speaking kids are disabled to an extent like those physically impaired.  However, given the scarcity of resources, particularly when public funds are involved, resources should be directed to support those who cannot learn in the mainstream school for which local kids will unavoidably be affected under such circumstances.   This is so called the "necessary evil" that we have to bear with.  It is also the price a developed and civilized society to pay.


Hope the above clarify my thinking.

alpham0m

回復 alpham0m 的帖子

To Fatty Daddy's comment "It is fair because you have the choice of not teaching your kids Chinese and send them to ESF. You decided against that choice is not the same is not having that choice. "

Yeah, you could do that and that's why the whole admission process is such a mess right now. When something is broken, why not fix it rather than sticking to it?

alpham0m

FattyDaddy  Actually this 'breakage' is a feature, not a fault. It is there to ensure ESF does not take on too many Cantonese speaking local kids   

Then my view is,  this is a very outdated feature and if the people on top are wise, they should observe what is really going on and seriously consider remove such feature by replacing it with a modernized feature.

alpham0m

They observed, and saw at least 70% of ESF students today are locals (who chose not to learn Cantonese), ESF is no longer a 'colonial' institution so there isn't much to 'modernize'

70% refers to Expats+Indians+ Koreans + Japanese + Chinese (can or cannot speak Cantonese). Not the entire 70% are made up by local Chinese kids who speak or don't speak the local dialect.

No, it is no longer a 'colonial' institution, I agree with you on that and that's why the admission policy needs a major review.

alpham0m

What I meant to say was, that 70% means kids with parents who are HK permanent residents (3 stars) regardless their skin colour or race.  

polyu4537

ESF Interview


Dear Parents,
We thank you for applying to Renaissance College for a place in Year One in August 2013. We wish to advise you on the next steps in the application process.
Applications received at Renaissance College on or before the Year One application deadline of 30 September 2012 will be drawn randomly by computer to determine the order in which the applications will be processed. Applications are then be sorted by priority as showed in the Renaissance College admissions policy, (please refer to the Renaissance College website http://www.renaissance.edu.hk/content/policy

Priority is given (in order) to applicants who are:
• Children of full time RCHK/ESF teacher;
• Siblings of students currently attending Renaissance College;
• Children who are Nominees under the Nomination Rights Scheme;
• Children currently attending ESF Educational Services Ltd. Kindergartens. Applicants must have attended a minimum of TWO continuous terms prior to the interview period;
• Other applicants.

You will receive a letter from the Admissions Department via email informing you the interview (or not) status of your child in late November. Year One (2013-14) Admissions interviews will take place in the month of January 2013.
Please kindly be reminded that the offer of an interview is no assurance that a place will be offered. Furthermore, as we have limited spaces, we cannot guarantee a place to all applicants who are successful at the assessment with the exception of Nominees under the Nomination Right Scheme who are guaranteed a place once they pass the assessment. Therefore, children may be placed on the wait-list according to their priority status and the random number they have drawn. Similarly, those not offered an interview will be kept as active applications in our system according to their random number for future openings.