Hong Kong faces a growing student absenteeism crisis, with more than 5,500 pupils chronically missing school due to academic stress and social challenges post-pandemic. Photo: Jelly TseThe breaking point for Hong Kong student Sarah* came in November 2023. The daily tests and quizzes for her Form One classes became overwhelming for the then 13-year-old, and she ultimately stopped attending school.
“It just never ends. I had to study 16 subjects, and almost all had quizzes, even for music and religious classes,” she said. “It was so exhausting. Whenever I failed, I had to do a re-quiz on top of the scheduled quizzes on that day. There was no chance to finish all the revisions.”
Another factor in her decision to quit was the struggle she faced connecting with her classmates.
“It was hard to make friends when everyone barely speaks to others and stays in their own circle,” she said.
Overwhelmed by the pressure, she stopped going to classes, becoming one of the thousands of students chronically absent in Hong Kong. The term refers to a student who misses school for seven consecutive days.
After dropping from more than 6,000 in the mid-2010s to about 3,000 between 2000 and 2022, the number of chronically absent students rose to 4,500 in 2022-23 and surpassed 5,500 in the past academic year.
Faced with a worsening problem, overstretched schools are limited in their response, according to frontline educators and youth workers. The needs of pupils who remained must be met and institutional standards maintained to avoid closure, they said.
But effective help could still be given to these “invisible” pupils and their equally stressed parents if educators were provided with the right tools, they argued.
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Tip of the iceberg?
While the 5,500 chronically absent pupils accounted for less than 1 per cent of the 662,000 student population, a third were aged between six and 15, making them subject to mandatory education.
Youth Outreach, an NGO, has estimated that more than 20,000 pupils are chronically missing school and “at risk of dropping out”, but most are not flagged to the government as they attend classes sparsely.
The Education Bureau has admitted it is aware of the rising trend in recent years and attributed it to post-pandemic challenges children faced in returning to a normal academic schedule, pledging to strengthen collaboration with schools to tackle the problem.
Other developed economies such as the United States, Britain and Australia have also seen significant post-Covid absenteeism, with 20 to 40 per cent of students missing 10 per cent or more of school days.
Frontline educators describe chronic absenteeism as a complex issue fuelled by multiple factors, including academic stress, social anxiety, mental health problems and strained family dynamics, all of which were exacerbated by the pandemic.
Secondary school principal Li Kin-man, formerly a youth social worker, said isolation had become a common coping mechanism adopted by young people following years of class disruptions and remote learning.
Li said family support, which helped to guard against absenteeism, had also weakened for some students, as parents were too busy making ends meet in a sluggish economy to care for their children’s emotional needs.
Personalised back-to-school plans
The Education Bureau will step in for students absent for seven consecutive days, potentially leading to warning letters or attendance orders with legal penalties. Parents who ignore the order risk a HK$10,000 fine and three months in jail.
But authorities rarely deployed the tools, with only 10 warnings and two orders issued in the 2023-24 school year. One reason for the low number, according to the bureau, was that steps were often deemed inappropriate after considering the emotional state of the students and parents.
Educators told the South China Morning Post that helping students return to school required personalised strategies, starting with home visits to find out the cause of the absenteeism, followed by devising flexible plans for returning to class.
For example, students could start school later in the day, take lessons they felt less stressed about, and in some rare cases, apply to take an entire year off. They can also be referred to mental health professionals when necessary.
Both Li and Roy highlighted the strain on an overstretched school system in handling these delicate cases, calling for increased manpower and resources for schools with higher absentee rates to enable early intervention.
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Pause and pivot
Some NGOs offer short-term programmes for pupils struggling to attend school, including the Unusual Academy at the Hong Kong Playground Association and Project Cool Teen at Youth Outreach – both of which were seeking additional resources to handle a rising demand for services.
The three- to six-month programme uses counselling, life skills training and group activities to help young people rediscover motivation and pursue either education or employment.
Iris Wong Yin-wing, in charge of the project at the Unusual Academy, which serves more than 200 young people a year, said she had received 80 applications for the coming session and had to put half of them on a three-month waiting list.
“We focus on the basic needs – a safe, comfortable environment for genuine connections,” she said. “Our game-based learning and group activities create a less stressful atmosphere for children.”
*Name changed at interviewees’ request.