Immigrants urged to home in on UK schools snag

Maisy Mok

Hong Kong immigrants are urged not to rush into property purchases in the United Kingdom as the decision will affect their children's schooling.

Education consultant Samuel Chan Sze-ming said that, unlike Hong Kong, the UK's state school catchment area could be very small.

"There's a chance that even if your home is one kilometer away, they won't accept you," he said. "Maybe they only accept those within two streets away."

Chan said yesterday that the UK's private schools recorded fewer overseas students from other countries and regions last year except for those from Hong Kong - "the number did not fall but rose instead, with more than 2,100 students admitted."

He estimated many also chose to enroll their kids in state schools. Chan's Hong Kong-based education consultancy, Britannia StudyLink, alone recorded about a thousand families consulting to enroll kids in state schools.

Chan said some parents would choose to enroll their kids in state schools for free education but he warned that the education resources allocated to state and private schools greatly differ.

He said the quality of private schools was better than state ones. He suggested families going to the UK through the British National (Overseas) visa route could enroll their children in private schools that offer daytime classes instead of boarding schools. The annual fee for private day schools is about HK$100,000, which is similar to international school fees here.

Chan said some private schools would even offer scholarships, "so parents do not need to apply for state schools in a rush."

He added: "There are many varieties of schools in the UK besides state schools, such as state boarding schools. Parents would only have to pay accommodation fees instead of school fees for state boarding schools."

He said there were children who were unable to secure a place in state schools that were in the same area as the property that parents had purchased in the UK, so parents listed their house for rent instead.

Chan estimated that more people would move to the UK when the Covid-19 situation stabilizes. "There are many people who are already applying for a spot in a day school for 2023 and 2024 so this indicates their families will be moving with the kids too," he said.

Children under 12 studying in the UK are required to be accompanied by an adult when flying back to Hong Kong.

Chan said as some airlines do not provide flight attendants to accompany a minor, some students were unable to return for the summer holiday before passenger flights from the UK were suspended from landing in Hong Kong starting from yesterday.