HKU POP SITE releases a column article analyzing the education issues triggered by Hong Kong's declining fertility rateBack

The "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) of the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases in its "POP Column" a bilingual article entitled "Analyzing the issue of teachers in excess through the Population Policy". Written by Jennifer So-Kuen Chan, Lecturer in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at HKU, the article pointed out that the "Report of the Task Force on Population Policy" released by the government late last month failed to alleviate problems facing our demographic structure, while solutions to many education issues triggered by the ever dropping fertility rate were yet to be found. Many suggestions were also made in the article on how to enhance the quality of teaching in Hong Kong.

Chan believed that the proposals presented in the Report for encouraging childbirth were not substantial enough. According to her, the under-admission of primary school students was due to the vigorous decline of both marital and fertility rates in recent years. A chain of negative reactions would then affect the long-term development of the local education system on the whole. The article also criticized the Report's suggestion to adopt the principle of seven-year residence requirement for new arrivals to be entitled with social benefits, which would produce more losers in the education system in the long run. Chan proposed the government to give bigger autonomy to local institutions, and open places in secondary schools to Mainland and overseas students, so that they could adapt to the local education system as quickly as possible.

The copyright of the column article is entirely open, and anyone can re-print it in whole or in part. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted in the POP Site, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors. The authors of the column articles are responsible for their own writings, while the translators are responsible for their own translations.