Adon3465, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Early Spring is pleasing in Hong Kong – twenty or so degrees, varying humidity and breeze, but pleasant. The Hong Kong flower show starts today (14 March). An indication of a growing season rather different to that of the UK.
The political and demographic background is more confused than pleasing. Consider, if you will, these two headlines from the respected South China Morning Post this week.
Number of Primary One pupils in Hong Kong predicted to drop by 23% over 6 years
Are Hong Kong’s universities attracting enough students from outside mainland China?
Hong Kong lost 7% of it’s population during the covid years. To put that in a UK context, that’s the equivalent of the UK losing 5 million residents. You may have your own opinions as to whether that might be a good thing or not, (probably depending on who the 5 million were…). In the case of Hong Kong, there were three main groups who left, as follows.
The first group was expatriates at the end of their typically 2 or 3 or 5 year contracts. This is entirely normal and predictable. However, their replacements simply did not arrive in any real numbers. Picture yourself having this conversation: ‘We need a replacement for X in Hong Kong. You could be it. Sure, there is the longest quarantine period in an hotel room in the world and the schools are closed so arrangements for your children will be difficult and there is little social activity, but what do you think?’ ‘I think I may pass’. Covid quarantines in Hong Kong did not end until September 2022. Vaccination certificates for eg restaurants were required until December 2022 and daily tests for schoolchildren finally ended in March 2023.
The second group was parents of small children and parents with disabled children. Hong Kong’s covid rules meant that anyone over the age of two (sic) who got a positive covid test, with or without symptoms, would be removed to a tented hospital for isolation without visitors (other than a single accompanying parent) for a fortnight. Imagine that for a four year old or for a child or adult with learning difficulties. Many parents did indeed imagine this and got on the first plane to wherever – with their children. Few have returned.
The biggest group, however, were from those who had seen the crackdown on political freedoms in 2019. All protests were banned in the name of covid in early 2020 and this marked the end of movements for democracy in Hong Kong (your correspondent wrote about this on this site on 20 May 2020).
Many of these saw a better future for themselves elsewhere, and so there was a significant exodus of particularly 25-35 year olds, often well educated and with a good career ahead. Some of these took young children with them but most saw the opportunity to bring up their children overseas, notably in Canada and England. The UK rightly honoured treaty obligations by easing entry for these Hongkongers after China had reneged on the HK treaty and this accounts for many more Cantonese in, for instance, South Manchester. Why South Manchester? Good schools, an airport with direct flights back to Hong Kong and football.
A few years on and there are consequences. Some of the children who left might now be starting school in Hong Kong at age 6/7. But they are not here and school rolls are falling and will fall further as their younger siblings (probably by now born overseas) will not be here either. International Schools, much favoured by expatriates because pupils can study in their ‘home’ language as well as usefully learning Mandarin Chinese are just about full but without the waiting lists of previous years. The spare spaces have been taken by the children of local and affluent Chinese parents.
And in the north of Hong Kong, up at the mainland border, can be seen the odd daily ritual of very young children crossing the border from mainland China each day as Hong Kong schools use mainland pupils to boost numbers.
This flow of mainlanders also applies to university education too. Hong Kong’s universities are required to attract a percentage of foreign and overseas students – Hong Kong wishes to be seen as an international education hub. The universities are meeting their targets – but only by classifying mainland Chinese students as ‘foreign’. Overseas students from elsewhere are notable by their absence: this is due to a combination of Hong Kong being expensive to live in, uncertainty arising from political restrictions and perceived difficulties in relationships between Beijing and other governments.
The Hong Kong government has just published a draft budget for the next financial year. After three years of deficit, virtually unheard of in Hong Kong, there is a move towards planning for a surplus. Expenditures will be reduced, including ‘plans to tighten rules to make it harder for under-enrolled, government-funded schools to survive’. So government school closures are on the cards as there is little prospect of the number of youngsters in Hong Kong increasing. Where, then, will the next generation of employees come from? Increasingly from the mainland, and from those who have gone through the mainland education system. And so the assimilation of Hong Kong into mainland China will continue.
Are Hong Kong’s universities attracting enough students from outside mainland China?
Number of Primary One pupils in Hong Kong predicted to drop by 23% over 6 years
© Hongkonger 2025
