Hong Kong lost 6,500 teachers in last academic year, bringing total to nearly 12,000 since 2021

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The wastage represented turnover rates of 9 per cent and 7 per cent in the two years respectively. On average, about 3,600 teachers resigned or retired annually before the emigration wave started in 2021.

A breakdown by sectors showed the turnover rate reached 17.6 per cent in kindergartens, 8.5 per cent in primary schools and 9.8 per cent at secondaries.

The percentages were records for preschool and secondary schools, and a 15-year high for the primary section.

“There are various reasons for teacher wastage, which mainly include retirement, pursuing further studies, changing to other types of schools, taking up employment outside the teaching profession, and leaving the post due to other personal reasons,” the bureau said.

But it said the demand for teachers would decrease correspondingly with the declining school-age population.

Based on the turnover rates in the past two to three years, the bureau forecast the number of teachers leaving would ease, with 5,730 expected to quit before the next term starts in September.

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The SCMP earlier reported that almost 3,500 teachers who resigned and retired from subsidised schools in the last academic year withdrew more than HK$10 billion (US$1.3 billion) in savings from their provident fund. That was twice the number who usually left their jobs annually.

Western countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia offered Hongkongers new migration pathways after Beijing imposed the national security law in June 2020.

For the student population, an SCMP analysis of the bureau data found there was a drop of 17,373 kindergarten and primary pupils in the current school term compared with the previous year. The decrease was more than the 15,878 logged in the 2021-22 school year.

The figures for secondary school students were not available in the document.

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The loss was most serious in K3. The data showed 53,199 pupils were studying in K2 in the previous school year but only 48,045 moved up to the higher grade in the current term, meaning more than 5,100 children quit.

Primary Six, the final year before secondary school, marked the second-largest loss of 3,300 students. Among the 60,158 Primary Five students in the previous academic year, only 56,821 moved up in the current year.

Education sector lawmaker Chu Kwok-keung attributed the increasing loss of students to the low birth rate and emigration, adding that parents now had a choice for their children to study in less competitive countries.

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“The parents of students studying in kindergarten are young, they may emigrate with their children. Those students were born in 2017 to 2019,” he said.

“The parents had their little ones during the most turbulent times in Hong Kong but the social unrest in 2019 affected their confidence in Hong Kong.

“Some parents lost confidence in Hong Kong’s education and emigrated. This has a lot to do with Hong Kong’s highly competitive, monotonous-assessment and examination-based education system.”