ESF crafts fee package to help parents

Sophie Hui

The English Schools Foundation has launched a "triple assistance package" for parents, including a 45 percent reduction in June fees, to help them amid the pandemic.

Parents can also defer up to half of the fees for April, May and June, with the option to repay over 24 months.

This comes after the ESF - which runs 22 schools with 17,770 students in Hong Kong - earlier said it will freeze tuition fees for the next school year.

Chief executive Belinda Greer said in a letter to parents yesterday: "The human cost of this global event has been hard to comprehend - and the economic impact of the pandemic is, I know, being felt keenly by many of our families.

"Some of you have had your hours cut, or have been asked to take unpaid leave, others have lost their job altogether. Many of you who run your own company have seen your business struggle to cope with the impact of the coronavirus."

The assistance package is designed "to give immediate assistance to those who need it most," Greer said.

"When times are tough - as they undoubtedly are now - families pull together. Our students and their parents are our family - and we want to make sure that we are playing our part in helping them get through this incredibly challenging period."

Parents may apply for any or all of the three schemes in the package.

The 45 percent discount on June's fees will require parents to reply to the school no later than May 7 to receive the discount.

The second scheme is the extension of the current financial assistance program - which offers up to 100 percent fee remission - to families of Year One and Year Seven students, as well as families of students in the foundation's kindergartens and students who have joined the ESF in the current academic year.

The third is a Covid-19 emergency assistance scheme, which will offer fast-track support to families, giving them the option to defer up to 50 percent of April, May and June fees, with the option to repay over 24 months starting from January 2021.

Pressure has also been growing on other international schools to lower fees as classes have been suspended since late January.

More than 500 parents of American International School demanded a reduction of at least 30 percent in trimester three school fees.

The petition was launched by the parent-teacher association of the international school in Kowloon Tong. Parents who have already paid requested the school to adjust and refund their payments before the next academic year.

"The quality of education in trimester three has inevitably been reduced by a minimum of 30 percent without the face-to-face interactions during online classes, hence the overcharged school fee," the parents said in their petition.

"Collecting a full fee based on the school's fixed costs is not a justifiable cause to withhold parents' refunds for unfulfilled fees - parents too have bills to pay."

sophie.hui@singtaonewscorp.com