Questions about SAR as Oz principal quits

The principal of the Australian International School has resigned, sparking questions about whether the pandemic and the national security law have deterred expatriate educators from working in Hong Kong.

The principal, Mark Hemphill, said he would leave at the end of this year, citing difficulties with going home to see his family back in Australia due to the pandemic.

A report in The Sydney Morning Herald also quoted him saying in a letter to parents: "I have loved my time at [the school] and was hoping to continue in the role for many years to come."

Hemphill joined AIS in 2018, after working at several secondary schools in Australia and Switzerland.

And Bill McKeith, an Australian educator who recruited Hemphill for the SAR, said: "National security, privacy and other laws are increasingly impacting on the governance and operational actions of schools."

The effects of such laws and the pandemic could affect the future viability of AIS, he added.

"The status quo has been thrown upside down" in Hong Kong, he went on, and that could lead to more challenges for schools to operate in a foreign environment.

AIS had not responded to The Standard's inquiries last night.

The school on Norfolk Road, Kowloon Tong, was founded in 1995 and has over 1,100 pupils from kindergarten to secondary school.

Touted as the SAR's only school to adopt the Australian curriculum, it offers New South Wales Higher School Certificate and International Baccalaureate diploma courses.

Fees range from HK$106,900 to HK$223,100 a year.

The school has also just posted job openings for a primary school psychologist and classroom and administration assistants.

Some 100,000 Australian citizens reside in Hong Kong, one of the largest overseas communities.

Hong Kong has, of course, long been a hotspot for expatriates, with about 690,000 foreigners living here in 2016. They accounted for 9.5 percent of the population.

But some have argued that the SAR is losing its allure due to the restrictions that came with pandemic and now the national security legislation imposed by Beijing in late June. Concerns are raised increasingly about a brain drain.

The immigration department issued 7,717 visas for employment and investment in the first half compared with 41,289 a year ago.

Among those issued this year, 1,119 were in the academic research and education sectors against 4,670 last year.

Officials have vowed to make changes in the SAR's education sector, with some teachers blamed for "professional misconduct" and a lack of patriotic ideas in textbooks and classrooms and thus turning students into radical protesters.

The education bureau received 147 complaints of teacher misconduct in the second half of last year - all related to the unrest.