The SAR government has pledged to provide 15 years of free education, i.e., offering three additional years of pre-school education, on top of the six years of primary school and six years of secondary school. Although no timetable for the implementation of the new initiative has been announced, "The Education Bureau is setting up a committee to examine the feasibility of free kindergarten education and to recommend specific proposals to enable all children to have access to quality kindergarten education," according to the Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. Since the 2007-2008 school year, a Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme has been subsidizing eligible parents or guardians to pay fees for their children who enroll in a nursery, lower or upper class, in eligible local non-profit-making kindergartens.

One major problem the government has to face, when designing a way to fund pre-school education, is the fact that pre-school education is very heterogeneous. The range of fees charged presently is very wide, reflecting vast differences in the training of the teachers and rental cost of the premises. If quality is part of the condition for funding, obviously teachers who are presently not qualified to do the job will have to seek the qualifications or have to quit, and a good question to ask is whether we have enough qualified teachers to take over their vacated positions. Perhaps there needs to be an interim period in which the not-yet qualified teachers may be allowed to stay on, and work on the necessary qualifications, while taking a discounted salary.

Whereas the present education voucher scheme is available only to those who attend non-profit kindergartens, one of the first questions to ask is whether the government is going to standardize the pay of teachers and take up the cost completely. Another question is whether kindergartens are allowed to charge extra fees, like the present direct subsidy schools do. Still another question is the reality of rental costs for the school premises, which also varies from location to location. Would it be unfair if the per capita subsidy of students varies - which would appear to be regressive because the rental cost is much higher in prestigious, high-class locations than in more grassroots locations?

Before answering these questions, it is important to realize that increasing income disparity in Hong Kong is a great concern. There is a need to address the problem of unequal opportunities faced by kids in wealthy and poor families. Of course we know that opportunities can never be equal, but we would certainly want to contain the degree of inequality. I would argue that ensuring that all kindergartens are adequately provided with resources in terms of proper classrooms, fully qualified teachers, supporting staff, and equipment is the key. These are the factors that directly affect the quality of the education.

Parents can choose to send their children to private kindergartens, and that is their prerogative. I would prefer that the private kindergartens not be funded by the government at all. These private kindergartens can charge whatever fees they want, subject to market demand. The government's role is to ensure that every child has access to adequately funded schools from pre-school to university.

The argument not to fund the for-profit private schools is that many of the favored elite kindergartens are already attracting more students than they can take. Any funding to such schools will result in extra profits for the schools, rather than alleviating the burden to parents.

The author is a director at the Centre for Public Policy Studies at Lingnan University.

(HK Edition 04/23/2013 page1)