Hong Kong parents angry at late return to classes for ESF kindergarten pupils, accuse authorities of unfair treatment
- ESF kindergartens forced to wait until May to resume in-person teaching as result of different registrations from other international counterparts
- Parent of K2 pupil calls late return to face-to-face classes for ESF kindergartens ‘grossly unfair’
Parents of pupils at five kindergartens run by Hong Kong’s biggest international school group have complained of unfair treatment by authorities after they discovered the campuses were excluded from resuming in-person teaching next Tuesday.
Several parents have written to the Post over the past week, complaining about a “policy loophole” after they learned that face-to-face classes would only resume from May 3 at kindergartens under the English Schools Foundation (ESF).
Last Monday, the government announced that international and primary schools could both return to in-person teaching as early as April 19.
But only one-third of kindergarten pupils will be allowed to return to classrooms from May 3, while another third will start seven days later and the remaining group will go back to school on May 16.
The five centres under ESF are registered as kindergartens, with in-person teaching only allowed to start from May 3. But other international counterparts, which are listed as part of their schools’ primary sections, can resume classes in mid-April.
Leung*, the father of a K2 pupil enrolled at one of the ESF kindergartens, told the Post he was unhappy that the differential treatment would cost his child at least 10 days of in-person classes.
