Home-schooling policy must be clear
- More Hong Kong parents are opting for home schooling despite it being an offence not to send children to school
- The growing trend makes a case for the government to spell out the current policy with clarity
It is an offence for parents not to send their children to school in Hong Kong. However, more parents have opted for home schooling, out of dissatisfaction with the education system or other considerations. This is not helped by the government’s ambiguous position on mandatory education.
Under the Education Ordinance, parents who refuse to send their children to school without good reason face a fine of HK$10,000 and three months in jail. What makes a good reason is of course open to debate. The issue was brought under the spotlight when a 43-year-old father sought school exemption for his 11-year-old son. He believed the boy would learn more from courses tailor-made by a memory training centre rather than “spoon-feeding education”. Be that as it may, few parents would go to the extreme to boycott schooling. Those who do so are usually dissatisfied with the education system and think their children will be better off learning from them at home than at schools. But there is more to schooling. Apart from intellectual development, it is also a process through which children socialise and learn to act responsibly in society.
The growing trend makes a case for the government to spell out the current policy with clarity. In Singapore, parents are allowed to apply for government approval for home schooling. In New York, regular reports on home-schooled children are required by authorities. The situation in Hong Kong is somewhat ambiguous, with the previous administration saying it would not as a rule disallow home schooling. Although the latest response from the Education Bureau seems to kill any hopes of home schooling being approved, some parents still do not abide by the law, out of misunderstanding or defiance. The policy must be explained clearly and the cases proactively followed up.