Abstract
With the introduction of 15-year free education in Macau and several provinces in Mainland China in recent years, a heated debate has broken out in Hong Kong over the proposal of providing free pre-primary education in addition to the existing 12-year free education at primary and secondary levels. A sea of different views has been voiced via various media since 2010 and the debate persists. In an attempt to help reconcile the ceaseless debate, this study was executed to delineate the major reasons, arguments, and concerns put forth by different parties in the debate. To this end, a set of online content analyses was conducted. The findings suggested that members of the community tended to support the implementation of 15-year free education, but several fundamental issues have been neglected by the supporting party and addressing these issues would be imperative. In light of the present findings, this study has identified the common interests shared by the supporters and opponents of the proposal which could offer a new light to understanding this debate. It is hoped that the findings and discussion could provide insights into how the issues concerned could be resolved, and in the long run, contribute to the development of pre-primary education in Hong Kong.
Introduction
Pre-primary education is receiving growing attention across the globe with the wealth of research in recent decades that underscored its long-term impact, not only on individuals, but also on societies at large.
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In view of the importance of early childhood education, governments and non-governmental organizations are devoting more efforts and resources to make pre-primary education accessible for all children in recent decades. In Macau and several provinces in Mainland China, a 15-year free education policy was implemented in 2006 and 2010, respectively. Accordingly, the children in these pioneers could get free education from kindergarten through secondary school.
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Such policy changes in the region, alongside public concerns in Hong Kong over the small share of the territory’s
The Landscape of Early Childhood Education in Hong Kong Today
In Hong Kong, much of the public spending on education has been devoted to primary and secondary education. Since 1978, the British colonial government began to offer 9-year free education, which included six years of primary education and three years of junior secondary education. More recently in 2008, the Hong Kong S. A. R. government extended the free education framework from nine years to 12 years, with the three years of senior secondary education included. Besides, policies with regard to direct subsidy, special education, language education, information technology in education, and teacher preparation have also been put in place for the primary and secondary sectors. It is nevertheless noteworthy that such provision of free education applies only to public sector primary and secondary schools. 4 To date, only 34 out of 528 local primary schools and 31 out of 490 local secondary schools are fully funded by the government. The majority of the rest receives partial subsidies from the government. 5 To ensure the quality of teaching, primary and secondary teachers must possess either a Bachelor’s degree in Education or a Postgraduate Diploma of Education awarded by one of the recognized local universities. In addition, language teachers are required to pass the Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers before they can register as a qualified language teacher and begin their professional practice. Remuneration and promotion are granted based upon a scale which would be revised according to the inflation rate annually. Continuing professional development is also offered by various government bodies to support teachers in different disciplines. 6
As mentioned earlier, pre-primary education in Hong Kong is offered by non-profit-making organisations and private bodies that are registered with and supervised by the Education Bureau (
In the hope of alleviating the burden of parents and enhancing the quality of pre-primary education, the Pre-primary Education Voucher (
In addition, parents from low income families are also eligible to apply for means-tested financial assistance from the Social Welfare Department to help cover the outstanding tuition fee and miscellaneous expenses incurred.
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Kindergarten establishments which cannot fulfill the criteria could continue to operate as private independent kindergartens. As of 2011, about 80% of the kindergartens in Hong Kong had joined the
The Debate about 15-Year Free Education
A motion was made in the Legislative Council to urge the government to provide 15-year free education with a view to enable all children to benefit from receiving free basic education while enhancing teachers’ remuneration system and establishing a professional training system so as to raise the overall quality of early childhood education in Hong Kong.
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This motion was followed by series of discussions, criticisms and debates within and beyond the government. While the government have yet to address the issue, Li,
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for instance, argued that offering full subsidies directly to privately run kindergartens for operational purposes and support all children for education regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds would in fact threaten the accountability and quality of pre-primary education on the whole. In general, while the supporters of 15-year free education persisted, the opponents reiterated that revisiting the existing Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (
Guided by the aforementioned background of the debate concerning 15-year free education and the context of education in Hong Kong, this study attempted to shed lights on the debate under study by addressing two questions:
How do the different stakeholders in the community view the proposal of 15-year free education in Hong Kong?
What are the major arguments, concerns, and proposed solutions behind the different views?
Method
Instrument
Considering the similarities in the research objectives concerned, this study adopted the method of conducting online content analysis used in Li, Wong and Wang. 15 Technically, the method was believed to be appropriate for this study due to three major reasons. First, according to the Information Service Department, Hong Kong enjoys the highest fixed broadband penetration rate and average broadband speed in the world, alongside 19,600 public Wi-Fi hot spots scattered across the territory. 16 In addition to residential and commercial Internet users who access the virtual space via fixed broadband services, the virtual space is also shared by 10.9 million subscribers of 3G/4G mobile broadband services. Second, previous research since the 1980s have suggested that people tend to feel more at ease and less restricted in expressing their own opinions in online environments. 17 Hence given the controversial status of the debate under study, the emerging role of online communication in Chinese communities, and the high broadband penetration rate in Hong Kong, the Internet could be a more sensitive medium for collecting public views than traditional survey. Besides, in this study, online posts regarding 15-year free education in Hong Kong were collected via Google Hong Kong (http://www.google.com.hk), the world’s leading search engine. 18 The engine is capable of mapping out a citation graph of the web and rapidly calculating the “PageRank” of a Web page objectively and mechanically according to its citation importance that corresponds well with people’s interest and attention spared to the Web page. 19 That said, the PageRank system will generate the most relevant and most cited Web pages at the top of the result list. This objective selection mechanism is believed to serve the purpose of this study.
Procedure
Google search was conducted to collect the relevant online posts, both in English and Chinese, using the same computer, browser, and Internet service provider. For the English data collection, a search using the English keywords “15-year free education Hong Kong” was conducted on October 18, 2013 at 16:40. “Results 1-10 of about 86,100,000 results (0.25 seconds)” was shown. As for the Chinese data collection, a search using the Chinese keywords “15 Nian Mian Fei Jiao Yu Xiang Gang” (15-year Free Education Hong Kong) was conducted on October 18, 2013 at 16:40. “Results 1-10 of about 8,930,000 results (0.35 seconds)” was shown.
Data Analyses
In view of the limited time and human resources available at the time of research, only the first 30 results and their corresponding links yielded from both the English and Chinese searches were screened for relevance. In this manner, The English search resulted in 14 relevant Web pages and one hyperlinked article, thus equating to 15 articles in total. The Chinese search resulted in 28 relevant Web pages alongside 29 articles hyperlinked to one of the Web pages, summing up to a total of 55 articles. In fact, no additional relevant article could be found beyond the 30th result of the English search. Hence, the decision to limit the present sampling to the first 30 search results is not only a condition imposed due to the lack of resources, but also one that matched the reality at the time of data collection. Content analyses were then conducted to identify the major themes, rationales, and arguments in relation to the proposed provision of 15-year free education in Hong Kong from the data collected.
The sample included 70 English and Chinese articles/reference materials gathered from 42 relevant Web pages. Among them were 7 (9%) documents released by the Government or the Legislative Council, 10 (21.8%) online editions of newspaper reports, 9 (11.5%) online editions of newspaper commentaries, 35 (44.9%) articles posted by professional or educational bodies, 3 (3.8%) commentaries written by bloggers or individuals, and 6 (7.7%) YouTube videos, i.e. one directly linked to YouTube and the rest were embedded in the Web pages of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (
Results
Content analyses of the articles or reference materials collected revealed a general inclination toward supporting the implementation of 15-year free education, mainly led by the
However, the above statistics have to be interpreted with caution. First, though supporting the proposal, it appeared that the arguments raised by the
Major Viewpoints of the Supporters
Content analyses were conducted to identify the major reasons, as well as underlying objectives and conditions in support of the proposal. As mentioned, the findings revealed that the underlying objectives in support of the 15-year free education differ among the
The Government
In general, the Government, and accordingly, the
The Professional/Education Bodies
Led by the
A remuneration scale and a professional training framework have to be established to acknowledge kindergarten teachers’ professionalism, reduce turnover rate, retain talents and support teachers to provide quality teaching.
The
The
The
With the implementation of the
According to a proposal prepared by members of the
A quality assurance mechanism should be established to support and revisit the current kindergarten curriculum, teaching quality, and teacher qualifications, as well as to promote a culture of self-evaluation among kindergartens, so as to raise the overall quality of pre-primary education. The operation of the external reviews conducted by the
Student-teacher ratio should be enhanced, and the calculation of student-teacher ratio should not include the principals and senior teachers.
Children should have equal opportunities to receive quality pre-primary education that could cater to their diverse developmental and learning needs regardless of their socioeconomic background, race, and learning abilities.
The Virtual Community
One of the videos sampled in this study reported a poll conducted by a television program in Hong Kong regarding the implementation of 15-year free education. While the sample size is unknown, the results showed that 64% of the participants believed that 15-year free education should be implemented immediately. Only 18% of the participants believed that further research is needed before implementation and 15% of them did not see a need for 15-year free education. The remaining 3% of the participants expressed no preference. The hostesses, one of whom was Ms. Tanya Chan Suk-chong—barrister, former Legislative Councillor and current member of the Civic Party—expressed that the slow progress of the implementation reflected the lack of integrity and capacity of the Chief Executive. In a similar vein, based on the commentaries written by bloggers and individuals, it is found that although parents were involved in the events organized by the
While supporting the introduction of 15-year free education and the establishment of a teacher remuneration scale, a blog entry in the present sample illustrated a more thorough analysis of why 15-year free education cannot be implemented immediately and the differences between primary and secondary education, and pre-primary education in Hong Kong. The problem of accountability was pointed out for the “first” time in the present sample. Unlike primary and secondary schools, kindergartens in Hong Kong do not own the school premise. Owners of the kindergarten establishments have to rent units from private or commercial enterprises. Against this background, if the government is to support the operation of kindergartens with the implementation of 15-year free education, tax revenue would be directly transferred to private or commercial landlords regardless of the amount of rental requested for. Besides, in terms of quality, considering the existing market-driven nature of kindergarten curricula, it would be time-consuming to narrow the discrepancy between the government’s call for child-oriented curricula and parents’ demand for academic-oriented ones that could prepare their children for primary school admission. The blogger suggested that the government could increase the value of vouchers offered under the
Major Viewpoints of the Opponents
Though against the major current, the materials that presented negative opinions toward 15-year free education have tabled concrete and practical issues which were hardly mentioned by the supporting parties in the debate. In sum, three major issues were pointed out.
First is accountability problem. Recalling that all kindergartens in Hong Kong are privately run, whether by profit-making or non-profit-making bodies, subsidizing their operation, including rental, would result in a direct transfer of tax revenue to private enterprises and landlords. In other words, the tax payers would then be supporting private enterprises to run their private businesses. In line with the views of the aforementioned blogger who supported 15-year free education, devising ways to tackle this accountability problem would be time-consuming, yet imperative. In this regard, Dr. Li Hui, the program coordinator of the early childhood education program at the University of Hong Kong, suggested that the government could pilot the establishment of public sector kindergartens while enhancing the existing
Second, the opponents argued that the provision of 15-year free education would dampen the overall quality of pre-primary education. The implementation of 15-year free education would be accompanied by a uniform operating and monitoring system which governs the way kindergartens deliver their curriculum and oversees their daily operation. As a result, not only will the existing uniqueness of kindergarten curriculum and culture offered by different establishments be diminished, but the overall quality will also suffer as the development of the better-performing kindergartens is hindered while kindergartens of lower quality could retain in the market with the financial subsidy. The quality and operating mode of kindergartens would tend toward an increasingly uniform mediocrity. In this connection, parents would be deprived of the rights to choose from a variety of kindergartens based on their unique needs and preferences. One of the commentaries questioned the claim that stable inflow of resource support for kindergartens and secured welfare for the teaching team could promise improvements in the quality of education. While 9-year and 12-year free education have been implemented in primary and secondary education since 1978 and 2008 respectively, and teachers have been decently paid based on a remuneration scale that is subject to inflation, both the quality of schools and the central school places allocation system have still been criticised and put to questions over the years. As illustrated by a metaphor put forth by Li “free lunches will only offer rice with barbecue pork, not abalone and sharks’ fin”. Excellence and innovation always come with a price. In the same vein, Prof. Francis Lui, economist and head of the Department of Economics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, contended that quality comes with competition and providing direct subsidy to kindergartens is merely a backward move. While acknowledging that there is room to improve the existing
Besides, the implementation of 15-year free education would require a comprehensive reform of the monitoring and operating systems which have been rooted in the local pre-primary education arena since the colonial era. Technical issues, such as allocation of places, modes of operation and student admission, and the varied availability of school facilities, must be addressed with thorough consideration and preparation which could not happen overnight. Li noted that granting direct subsidy to kindergarten would encourage the development of oligopolies in pre-primary education. As children could then gain free access to the relatively more resourceful and popular kindergartens in town, the scale of these kindergartens could grow tremendously in light of the implementation of 15-year free education, eventually coercing kindergartens of smaller scales to perish.
That being said, except for Mr. Shih Wing-ching, property entrepreneur, who held that quality education do not necessarily lead to personal success and societal development, all the other opponents unanimously suggested that the
Discussion
This study has attempted to delineate the major arguments, concerns, and suggested solutions put forth by the different parties involved in the ceaseless debate over the provision of 15-year free education, that is, to include the 3-year pre-primary education into the existing 12-year free education system in Hong Kong. The present findings yielded from the content analyses of online references showed not only supportive and opposing views toward the proposal, but also common grounds between the two parties which have been overlooked. These generally overlooked pieces could be the missing pieces that could help complete the puzzle and resolve the debate.
Looking through the Fog
Taking a closer look at the present findings, what the supporting and opposing parties persist in achieving could be the same wine in different bottles. Many of the suggestions or demands made by both parties are indeed identical to a considerable extent. To be specific, both parties proposed an increase of the existing voucher value and a voucher that could sufficiently cover the tuition fee of full-day kindergarten programs. Both have called for the establishment of subsidy schemes to support teachers’ professional development and school development, as well as a teacher remuneration scale to enhance the quality of services and teachers’ working conditions. Additional administrative support was demanded by the supporters and a reduction of administrative procedures was suggested by the opposing party. With these, we can see that the two parties in the debate are striving for the same set of goals—equal accessibility to all children and enhanced supports for teachers and education services.
Given the common grounds shared by the two parties, the supporters of the
While seeking reconciliation, it is worth contemplating whether this ceaseless debate has been manipulated to serve political interest in one way or another. This speculation is made based on the supporters’ frequent reference to the public’s discontent toward the current-term Chief Executive. It is reasonable to anticipate that references to the unpopular Chief Executive might attract not only those who are concerned about pre-primary education to join the supporting league, but also those who detest how the current-term government was formed, the suspected Communist background of the Chief Executive, and agree with the many other accusations against the current-term government. While it is not within the scope of this study to address whether members of political parties who help strive for free education in the name of “15-year free education” possess any implicit intention to gain public supports through the campaigns, further investigation could be meaningful for society’s stability and sustainable development.
On the other hand, it is noteworthy that the arguments of the supporters seem to be in favour of kindergarten establishments and teachers rather than the betterment of children. While providing full and guaranteed cash inflow to kindergarten establishments and teachers would mean quality education remains a questionable speculation as Lui remarked, it is surprising how supporters of 15-year free education have failed to acknowledge the positive impacts of the
Despite the generous funding being channeled into primary and secondary education over the years, one cannot forget that pre-primary education in Hong Kong does not share the same starting point with primary and secondary education on many fronts. Neither is the community, in general, satisfied with the quality of primary and secondary education. Having said that, clinging onto the operating systems and funding modes of primary and secondary education as a reference, or even an ideal, would not be valid for improving pre-primary education.
The Way Forward
Taken together, this study is a preliminary attempt to resolve the debate over 15-year free education by delineating the arguments and concerns presented by the different parties involved. It is hoped that the fog lingering in the debate could be cleared and constructive steps could be taken toward settling the debate, and more importantly, raising the quality of pre-primary education for children’s betterment. Besides, as pre-primary education is gaining attention in other countries and regions, this study could also offer potential implications for educators, policy-makers, and other stakeholders of the community to rethink the unique status of their current education systems.
As with all other studies, this study is subject to several inherent limitations. First, due to the open nature of the Internet, it would be difficult to capture the enormous amount of relevant information online which could be updated every minute. Second, the selection of data relied on the technical configurations preset by Google, reliability and validity of the present sample were therefore bound to uncontrolled bias. Moreover, as the data used in this study included little empirical evidence, but subjective views of the different parties involved in the debate, the findings could only serve to set the stage for future research to verify the issues via empirical methods. Nonetheless, the ultimate message that stakeholders of pre-primary education and those of the community could gather from this study is the imperative need to clarify one’s goals in striving for quality education and devote practical efforts to constructively and realistically work toward the goals. Without clear goals and pragmatic efforts, voices and actions will result in nothing but a restless and stagnant society.
Footnotes
1 James J., Heckman, “Policies to foster human capital.” Research in economics 54, no. 1 (2000): 3-56.
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―――. “Policies to foster human capital.” Research in economics 54, no. 1 (2000): 3-56.
Robert G., Lynch, Exceptional Returns: Economic, Fiscal, and Social Benefits of Investment in Early Childhood Development. (Washington,
8 Education Bureau. “Kindergarten education”.
9 Hong Kong Council of Early Childhood Education and Services. Position paper: The first consideration of the Hong Kong Council of Early Childhood Education and Services (
10 Legislative Council. Background brief on Issues related to the provision of 15-year free education (
11 Legislative Council. Motion on ‘Striving for 15-year free education’ moved by Hon CHEUNG Man-kwong. 2011.
13 Legislative Council. “Striving for 15-year free education”.
14 Hui, Li, “Against 15-year Free Education: Scholar Urges For a Simplified Voucher.” (In Chinese.) Wen Wei Po (Hong Kong), December 2, 2011. 
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17 Sara, Kiesler, Jane Siegel, and Timothy W. McGuire. “Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication.” American psychologist 39, no. 10 (): 1123.
Mark, Warschauer, “Comparing Face-to-Face and Electronic Discussion in the Second Language Classroom.”
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Anthony G. Picciano, “Beyond Student Perceptions: Issues of Interaction, Presence, and Performance in an Online Course.” Journal of Asynchronous learning networks 6, no. 1 (2002): 21-40.
21 Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press, 1962.