Schools feel pinch of student exodus

One of the city's direct-subsidy secondary schools lost as many as 160 students out of 1,000 in the past school year, the chairman of the Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council, Dion Chen, said in an interview with The Standard.

Chen, also the headmaster of the YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College, said his secondary school lost 50 students, compared with fewer than 30 in previous years. However, he didn't name the school that lost 160 pupils.

"There were students leaving in every grade, but fewer in secondary six because they are preparing for public examinations," Chen said, adding that it was common for higher secondary students to leave school early to study abroad, but not as many as in the past academic year.

But he said the number was not final as there might be more students leaving before the summer holiday ends and the school will have to wait until September to have a clear picture of its student population.

Chen also expects the impact of the exodus to continue into the future as both Australia and New Zealand, two popular countries for studying abroad, have not opened their borders yet.

While schools have stepped up advertising to recruit students, Chen said it could only replenish 50 percent of the vacancies.

"So for my schools, we may only be able to recruit some 20 students to fill up the spaces via open enrollment," he said, adding it is harder to recruit senior secondary students.

The exodus also created a financial burden on direct-subsidy schools as Chen said between 60 to 90 percent of the schools' funding came from subsidies, which are subject to the amount of fees that they receive.

Meanwhile, aided primary schools are also facing similar problems, with vacancies across all grades, said Cheung Yung-pong, honorary chairman of the Aided Primary School Heads Association. He said yesterday that primary schools often see two or three siblings studying in the same school drop out together.

Cheung said schools may have to shut down if they have an intake of less than 16 students. He added: "We have not come to that yet, but it is a possibility."

It is estimated that 15,400 students had left primary and secondary schools by October, says the Education Bureau's Report on Student Enrollment Statistics 2020/21.