Many parents in Hong Kong are sending their children to other countries to complete their schooling. Write an article for your school magazine examining two reasons for this phenomenon. You should also discuss the impact of this on local schools and on the children who leave to study overseas.
Sending Children Aboard: Trend and Impacts
In Hong Kong, numerous parents are sending their children to other countries to complete their schooling. Why are they planning to study overseas? There are two reasons for this phenomenon.
First, the most significant reason is it is highly competitive to get to university. Although Hong Kong has different kinds of tertiary institutions, students tend to choose the eight universities which are more popular and subsidized by the government. When students are in Secondary 6, they need to face a torment public examination called Hong Kong Diploma of Education (HKDSE). If they want to study in the top universities, they have to achieve extraordinary high grades in the examination. Different faculties in different universities have different minimum requirements. There are so many competitors and it is a fact that getting a ticket to university is an uphill battle which make students feel stressed. If they unfortunately get lower marks in HKDSE, they will not have an opportunity to go to university. They can choose to study at other tertiary institutions, but these may not be their favourite ones. Consequently, they might consider studying overseas as it is hard to get an offer in Hong Kong.
Second, the most essential reason is rigidity of local education system. In Hong Kong, most of the students need to finish so much homework, to have quizzes or tests every day. It is not uncommon for students not to have any entertainment or leisure time after school. After school, they are arranged to numerous tutorials or make-up classes to ‘enhance’ their learning. Recently, the number of teenage suicidal cases is on the rise as the youth might not resist the tremendous pressure from studying. They find themselves helpless, feel exasperated. Hence, parents are sending them overseas, hoping the western education might provide their children a better education. They think their children will be assured and optimistic if they can study aboard. It is believed that the different education systems might let Hong Kong children learn under less pressure and have a more pleasant learning environment.
Nevertheless, when students are sent to other countries to finish their schooling, there are some impacts on them.
Children and parents’ relationship is going to be less close or even turn bad as they lack face to face communication. Children meet and make new friends overseas and are busy at schoolwork or preparing for assessments. They find it hard to squeeze time to talk to their parents.
For the positive impact on children, they can learn to be more mature and independent because they have to take care of themselves such as cooking, tidying up their rooms, doing laundry. In Hong Kong, the monster parents might take overprotect them and do too much for them. Children only need to focus on studying. They reply on their parents too much. So, studying aboard can help the children to learn to be more independent. Yet, there are negative impacts on the children. Some might have problem problems when studying overseas. In Hong Kong, majority of population communicate in Cantonese. Some students’ English proficiency might not be good enough to have effective communication with English-speaking people. As a result, they have to overcome lots of challenges and cultural shocks before they can settle down in a new environment.
Also, when more parents send their children to study overseas, the local schools might face an increasing drop in student population and some might be forced to close. Apart from that, Hong Kong might lose some elites and talents.
Education is vital all over the world and there is no universal formula to set up a perfect education system. The increase in the number of parents sending their children overseas to study lead us to rethink our current education system. It is the high time we should have a reform in our education system.