Missing school funds, fake pupils and poor audits: Hong Kong education chief grilled at Legco
- ‘If you ask us to prevent even the most minor incidents happening, that is impossible,’ minister Kevin Yeung says
Hong Kong’s education chief on Friday fended off accusations that the government had been slow to react following a series of cases involving malpractice or maladministration uncovered in schools.
Lawmakers gave Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung a grilling over a number of scandals at primary and secondary schools in which funds were misappropriated, pupil enrolments falsified or accounts audited unsatisfactorily.
At a special sitting of the legislature’s finance committee, several lawmakers said the Education Bureau had failed to fulfil its duty to competently oversee the operations of local schools.
“In recent months we have seen very chaotic school administration. And sometimes these cases were only followed up on because the media reported them or complaints were made. What more can you do?” asked Ip Kin-yuen, who represents the city’s education sector in the Legislative Council.
Last month a 48-year-old teacher at Tung Wah Group of Hospitals’ Leo Tung-hai Lee Primary School in Tin Shui Wai was found dead after falling from a six-storey campus building. Authorities said the school had been the subject of a complaint before the incident and that the school’s governing committee would handle the case. This sparked concerns that the committee, made up of supervisors, alumni, teachers and the principal, was wielding too much power with insufficient oversight.
