DDay -21

Observation #11:  One of the biggest obstacles when moving to Hong Kong is winning a place for your children in one of the many international schools here.  Almost every civilized country has a campus, or two, here.  We have the Hong Kong International School (American), the American International School, Australian IS, Canadian IS, Delia School (Canadian), Japanese IS, Singapore IS, Kellet School (British), Chinese IS, Norwegian IS, German-Swiss IS...you get the idea.  Parents don't necessarily stick to their own country when choosing a school.

Most people apply to several schools and hope for acceptance to at least one of them.  When your children get accepted to a school, you seriously feel like you won the lottery.  The school situation here is one more reason, including cost of living and pollution, that people turn down job offers here. There are at least 40 international and ESF schools in Hong Kong but it is extremely difficult to get a place in a school because there are 10 times more applicants than there are places.  English Schools Foundation (ESF) are sponsored by the UK, are English speaking, subsidized by the HK govt and cost less than than international schools.

Children attend the ESF school in which they are zoned based on where they live but they are just as difficult to get into as the international schools. One of the issues is that a lot of locals want their children to attend one of the international schools not only because of the stellar education they will receive but also because it increases their chances of being accepted to an American or British university.

Growing up, I always thought that Hong Kong and other countries in Asia had the best schools in the world but that's not necessarily the case.  The local schools do have high test scores but parents complain that the schools are overcrowded, overly strict and abusive, don't focus on English enough and focus too much on rote learning/test taking rather than problem solving and creative thinking (more on that in a future blog).  So, that means that there are thousands of local families competing with expat families for school placements.  The schools were specifically designed for expats because, otherwise, these children would have no where to attend school.

In local schools, major subjects are taught in Cantonese and Mandarin which are very difficult to learn so children would lose valuable time trying to get caught up in the language instead of keeping up in math and reading.  To be fair and to keep peace with the government, most international schools accept local students but cap the enrollment numbers at 50% of the student population.  Even so, there are many expat children who end up with no school placement.

There are two school age boys in my building who moved here last year and have not been accepted to a school yet. It's sad to see those boys watch the other children in the building get off the school bus excited to share their day with their parents.  I really hope those boys get a place next year.  Maybe they can have Liam and Gemma's spots.