Kindergartens in Hong Kong ‘facing staff shortages’ as teachers working up to 70-hour weeks threaten to quit their jobs over excessive demands of government scheme
- Four in 10 say they are thinking about leaving the profession because of the administrative burden imposed by Free Quality Kindergarten Education Scheme
- More than 90 per cent report sleeping problems and stress issues in the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers poll
Kindergarten teachers have to work up to 70 hours a week following the introduction of a free education scheme two years ago that risks triggering an exodus of staff, a survey has found.
More than 90 per cent of the 1,255 kindergarten teachers and principals polled also said they were stressed and not getting enough sleep because of the extra administrative burden of the system.
The findings were revealed on Tuesday in a survey conducted in May by the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, which is warning of staff shortages as the strain on teachers becomes too much to bear.
The poll found 42 per cent of respondents were considering quitting due to the demands of the job, with more than half of them reporting at least one to three of their colleagues had already left this year.
Nearly half of the respondents worked between 60 to 70 hours a week, up from 40 to 50 hours in the past, the survey also revealed.
Introduced in 2017-18, the free school scheme was designed to largely replace the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme.
The previous system granted parents direct fee subsidies, in the form of vouchers, to help with the cost of kindergarten classes, as well as offering more choice.
Under the new Free Quality Kindergarten Education Scheme, preschools receive a basic subsidy for the provision of three-year, half-day teaching for all eligible pupils, intended to cover expenditure on salaries for teaching and support staff, and other normal operating costs.
While the money should be enough to ensure there is no need to charge parents fees for half-day services, the profession says it has meant extra work for schools.
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Compared with the voucher scheme, 52 per cent of the respondents found their amount of work had increased since the free quality education scheme was implemented.
Lam Chui-ling, the vice-chairman and spokeswoman of the federation, said money came with a set of guidelines and operating procedures that created more work.
“Everything is so systematic. For example, teachers are required to fill in different kinds of evaluation forms. They also have to deal with the tendering process when choosing teaching materials and these have significantly increased the teachers’ administrative work,” Lam said.
“This is all extra work on top of having to handle the curriculum and their other duties that go on in the classroom. Sometimes, they even have to sacrifice their personal time or lunch period.”
Lam said she was worried that kindergartens would be understaffed if these issues were not resolved and the government continued to drown schools with extra paperwork.
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But Lam’s fear may have already been realised.
A kindergarten principal, Irene Cheung Yu-wei, said she had seen one or two of her staff per year leaving their position in the past two years.
“The scheme asks our teachers to work on evaluation of students after they teach each course and examine their responses to the curriculum,” said Cheung, the headmaster of Allway Kindergarten in Tsuen Wan, New Territories.
“They also have to help with non-teaching-related administrative work such as the tendering process for teaching materials and appraisals.”
The federation urged the administration to review the policy and increase the subsidy so schools can hire administrative staff dedicated to the paperwork.
The scheme takes the government one step closer to its promise to provide 15 years of free education for every child in need.
An Education Bureau spokesman said it would continue to work with schools to enhance the operation of the scheme.
The bureau would conduct a review in mid-2019, the spokesman added, to assess if the policy had reached its proposed objectives and to look into the possibility of setting up a master pay scale for teachers.
