Students cross the line to catch a class act

Crossborder students from Shenzhen arrive in Hong Kong through Lok Ma Chau Port on April 14.

 

Student numbers soar

Zou's son was one of more than 24,990 children who commuted between Shenzhen and Hong Kong during the 2014-15 school year, a huge rise from 9,899 in 2010-11, according to the latest data from the Hong Kong Education Bureau.

In light of the rise in numbers, several proposals have been put forward, including suggestions that Shenzhen's public schools should be opened to cross-border students with permanent residence in Hong Kong. Most of them have mainland parents, who have no right to reside in Hong Kong, but the others are the children of people from Hong Kong who live and work on the mainland.

Back in 2013, lawmaker Ip Kwok-him, a Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress, took the issue further by proposing that not only should those students be accepted at Shenzhen's public schools, but that Hong Kong-style schools should be built in the city to offer the Hong Kong curriculum and better cater to their needs.

However, the proposals seem far from realistic because the Hong Kong education system can't be imported to the mainland exactly as it is, which would compromise the wishes of parents to choose it rather than schools across the border, according to Jeff Leung Pingkin, a spokesperson for the Concern Group on Policies for Cross-border Students, an NGO in Hong Kong which monitors cross-border education.

In 2013, the Hong Kong government introduced a "zero delivery quota", to redress the balance after a 2001 ruling by the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal granted permanent residence to all infants born in the city. The ruling led to an influx of non-locals who wanted their children to be born in the city.

More than 202,300 non-local children had been born in Hong Kong by the time the ban was imposed. They have permanent residence, but their parents, who are mostly from the mainland, don't, so the children live in Shenzhen and cross the border every day to go to school.

The number of children crossing the border for schooling will peak in the 2018-19 school year, before gradually decreasing, according to the Hong Kong Education Bureau, inane-mailed reply to questions from China Daily.

The bureau said the government has no plans to build Hong Kong-style schools on the other side of the boundary, saying the surge in demand for cross-border school places is "transient". It also cited regulatory and operational difficulties, and the financial implications for publicly funded schools outside Hong Kong.

The bureau has encouraged Hong Kong-born children who live in Shenzhen to attend primary schools in the mainland city, as provided by the Classes for Hong Kong Students Program, which make provisions for children born in the city to be educated in Shenzhen.

In 2013, the program was extended to children whose parents are not permanent residents of Hong Kong, and this academic year has seen 3,100 Hong Kong-born students in Shenzhen being taught in privately operated establishments known as "Minban" schools.

Although she agreed that more options in Shenzhen would help the children, Zou won't let her son attend a public school in the city.

"I never thought about putting him in a school in Shenzhen - neither the public schools, nor the international ones," she said.

Leung said many parents made a conscious decision to give birth in Hong Kong because they want the next generation of their family to be educated in the city's more cosmopolitan, international environment.

Some of the parents regret having no option but to send their children to Hong Kong, according to Leung, who is assisting several cross-border students. The children are not allowed to study at public schools in Shenzhen, which have a limited number of places for children with hukou, or residency permits, so the only alternatives are private or international schools, which are far beyond the price range of most families.

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