No more Cat 1 and Cat 2 for ESF admission!

birdbird

From my understanding of the past, Cat 1 and Cat 2 is to distinguish kids who can take local education from others who cannot. Say, for a Japanese / Korean kid whose parents fly from their home country to hk to work, these kids should be classified as Cat 1 and should be given a higher priority to attend ESF as long as they can listen or express themselves in simple english. for the local chinese, whose children can speak both cantonese and english, they have a wider choice of schools including those primary schools using chinese as the teaching medium. Same apply to those who have foreign passports but parents are still local chinese. Putting these kids into Cat 2 is reasonable as ESF is not their only door for education. The only problem is that some monster parents train their kids to speak english only and claim their kids are cat 1. (How come a local chinese kid with chinese parents cannot speak cantonese? weird and ridiculous!) The parents allege that the cat 1 and cat 2 classification is not fair to them but actually, they are playing tricks instead of a fair game.

In my opinion, Cat 1 and Cat 2 system is a fairer system to kids and parents. The screening system, of which the ultimate goal is to screen out kids who cannot listen or express themselves in simple english, is more reasonable for a 4-yr old kid than those interviews offered by the local primary schools which are to pick the outstanding kids. When there are no more Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification, i can see that there will be more and more monster parents training their kids to be professional interviewees. This is not what a normal education system should be but parents of Hong Kong always make weird things happen.

birdbird

PoohsBaby 發表於 13-2-14 23:27
Why do you think it is a fair system??? The Government is using Taxpayers money to subsidize expatriates / foreign nationals kid's schooling in HK.   This ESF subvention is by no means fair to HK residents.

Local chinese are tax payers but it doesn't mean that expatriates working in Hong Kong do not need to pay tax to the HKSAR Government.

ESF is under government's subvention, so its admission policy should be fair to tax payers. 'Fair' does not simply mean giving everybody the same thing.  It should take into account the circumstances. Kids of local chinese families obviously have a wider choice of education. However, some of we local chinese pick ESF because of its curricumlum, culture and comparatively lower tuition fees than other international schools. For expatriate children who do not know any chinese, they certainly have fewer chocies. The establishment of ESF was originally aimed at providing affordable education to these children. It is reasonable that priority is given to these children under such circumstance. That's why I consider Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification is fairer from a broad perspective.

Right now, the Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification system is cancelled. Together with this, the targets of the ESF has been changed - to provide education to children who who can be benefited with English teaching medium. It is against the original purpose of the establishment of ESF. How about those children whose mother tongue is french or Japanese or korean while they also know English? I think the ESF owes an explanation to the LegCo with its change of its target while still getting the subvention.


Regarding the interview process, ESF has been adopting a non-selective approach. The interview is to screen out those who cannot understand or express themselves in simple English instead of picking clever kids.  If the interview approch is to pick clever students or students who can speak fluent english, do we still agree that our kids should be deprived of the rights to attend school just because they are not smart enough or cannot talk in perfect english at the age of 4? I feel sad if the ESF interview becomes another cruel battlefield for our small kids in the same way as most local schools are now running.

Finally, without the Cat 1 and Cat 2 classification, some local chinese think that we are given a higher chance to get in. Without clear selection criteria, we can never a have a good guess of the chance of our kids to get a place.