HK unites in fight against poverty

"Education is a powerful tool to address many of the world's most daunting problems," she said, while delivering a speech at an educational awards presentation.

However, the addition of more money for education has not been enough to meet the needs of underprivileged families.

The Society for Community Organization, a Hong Kong nonprofit organization, interviewed 157 children ages 3 to 18 from the city's low-income families in June last year. It found that half were from families too poor to pay for after-school tutoring and classes to help with homework. However, 80 percent said they needed the extra help.

Sze Lai-shan, SoCo's community organizer, said: "They want to keep pace with their schools' programs, especially English. Teachers are too busy to help them and their parents are not able to help either."

The 2017 Poverty Situation Report said that less than 20 percent of the city's impoverished population completes postsecondary education.

Ng's father works on the Chinese mainland, and comes home on weekends. The girl's mother has a diploma from a mainland vocational institute, and does her best to help the children with their homework.

The mother is best at Chinese and mathematics, but her English is poor. That only heightens Ng's problems at school, as she has failed all her English tests.

Ng's teachers are too busy to help, her mother said, as they have heavy workloads, including course planning, preparation and assessment. On top of this, they are assigned administrative duties. In 2000, teachers said this administrative work comprised 30 percent of their working hours, according to a survey by the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers.

The federation interviewed 264 local teachers in November 2017 and found that the situation had not changed, with administrative work continuing to eat into teaching time.

Ng's mother wishes she could afford private tutoring to spare her daughter from being labeled an underachiever. But the HK$120-per-hour cost is beyond her reach.

The SoCo survey found the monthly cost of after-school classes is about HK$819, some 7.7 percent of an impoverished family's typical monthly income. Sze said that is enough to buy food for a poor family for 10 days.

"More often, poor families have to sacrifice extra schooling because day-to-day survival has to come first," Sze added.

Ng still receives some help.

On Sundays at 10 am, the sixth-grade student goes to a fast-food restaurant in a nearby shopping mall, where her tutor, 22-year-old Kelvin Lam Ka-wang, is waiting to give her an hour of free lessons.

Lam is a volunteer teacher from Principal Chan Free Tutorial World, Hong Kong's first organization to offer one-on-one tutoring for underachievers from families receiving CSSA.

Chan Hung, the founder of Principal Chan, established the charity in April 2011, giving up a HK$100,000 monthly salary as a secondary school principal.