Will Hong Kong lose expat teachers over strict Covid-19 quarantine rules? International schools extend breaks for staff to travel home, serve quarantine on return
- Schools shorten Christmas, other breaks to let staff have eight weeks off for travel over summer
- Many expat teachers unhappy and missing families after being unable to return home for two years
Major international schools in Hong Kong are shortening their year-end and other breaks to give expatriate staff a longer summer holiday to return home and still meet the city’s strict quarantine requirements.
The schools are worried that teachers unhappy that they could not return home this year because of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions might resign over the long separation from their families.
The summer holidays are usually six weeks. Many schools are extending next year’s summer break to eight weeks, and this will allow expats to have five weeks of holiday before returning to spend 21 days in quarantine in Hong Kong.
“This will allow more time for families to travel and complete quarantine while at the same time ensuring we retain the same number of school days,” said Belinda Greer, chief executive officer of the English Schools Foundation (ESF).
The schools are allowed to tweak the length of their breaks provided they meet the Education Bureau’s guideline to have no fewer than 190 school days for whole-day schools in an academic year.
ESF, the biggest international school group in the city, runs 22 kindergartens and schools with about 3,000 employees and more than 18,000 students of more than 75 nationalities.
Greer said it reconfigured the school calendar to shorten the Christmas holiday by two weeks and extend the summer holiday to eight weeks.
