Needy Hong Kong minority children miss out on scholarships to some of city’s top fee-paying schools
- Government requires international and private schools to offer scholarships to deserving pupils, but almost 60 per cent of those offered go unused, survey finds
- Ethnic minority children from poor families are ideal candidates for the funds, says report, but their parents are unaware of the help available to them
Thousands of children from low-income ethnic minority families in Hong Kong could be missing out on life-changing scholarships at the city’s international, private and subsidised schools, a report reveals.
Among the findings of the report by The Zubin Foundation, which focuses on issues faced by the city’s ethnic minorities, is that almost 60 per cent of financial-aid-based scholarships offered by Hong Kong’s international and private schools went unused. Low-income families are failing to enrol for scholarships worth a combined total of more than HK$300 million, the report’s authors say.
A majority of schools surveyed admitted they needed help in finding deserving students.
According to the report, the reasons for the low uptake range from poor awareness of the schemes to opaque application procedures; some schools also misallocate scholarships to existing students based on academic performance rather than on the grounds of financial need.
Susan Collins, a consultant with the law firm Stephenson Harwood and one of the report’s authors, first became aware of the situation when she joined the parents’ board at French International School in Happy Valley in April 2009. In return for the provision of land by the Hong Kong government, she learned, all Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme schools (DSS) – non-government schools which charge fees but also receive government subsidies – and many international schools were required by the Education Bureau to set aside a percentage of their income each year, 10 per cent in most cases, to fund scholarships and/or other financial help for deserving students.
French International School was one such school. But even though the school advertised its scholarships in both English and Chinese newspapers, it did not receive a single application. Wanting to discover why this was the case, Collins teamed up with The Zubin Foundation to research the issues.
