Early Childhood Education in Hong Kong: Policy, Resources and Quality

1
Early Childhood Education in Hong Kong Policy,
Resources and Quality

• Gail Yuen
• The Hong Kong Institute of Education

2
Change of Governance

• From British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997
• The Basic Law (Government of the Peoples
  Republic of China, 1990)
• Hong Kong as a special administrative region
  (SAR)
• One country, two systems
• A high degree of autonomy
• Formulate own policies on the development and
  improvement of education

3

• Hope?
• Illusion?

4
Context

• British colonial legacy
• Laissez-faire politics
• Economic emphasis
• Executive orientation
• Minimal attention on education
• Compulsory education
• Teacher education
• Educational borrowing

5
Context

• Hong Kong SAR government
• More commitment to education
• More faithful adoption of managerialism
• Economic challenges
• Business orientation of policy elites and
  officials
• Stronger executive orientation
• Tung administration (1997-2003)
• Tsang administration (2003-present)

6
Context

• Yuen (2005)
• A government official said,
• After 1997 . . . . the 3Es, which stand for
  economy, effectiveness, and efficiency, have been
  advocated to promote accountability.
• Accountability has priority over professional
  competence.

7
Policy as Discourse

• Ball (1994)
• Discourses are about what can be said, and
  thought, but also about who can speak, when,
  where and with what authority.
• We are the subjectivities, the voices, the
  knowledge, the power relations that a discourse
  constructs and allows.

8

• Reality?

9
Early Childhood Education System
Birth to Age 3 Social Welfare Dept. Child care centers Crèches (birth to age 2) Nurseries (ages 2-3) Mostly full-day session Ages 3 to 6 Education Bureau Kindergartens nurseries Mostly half-day session (am/pm)
10
Early Childhood Education System

• Institution type
• All private (none being publicly funded)
• Non-profit-making vs. profit-making
• Local vs. international

11
Early Childhood Education System

• Student population
• Predominantly Chinese
• Ethnic minorities India, Pakistan, Nepal, etc.
• Increasing number
• Children living in poverty
• Immigrant children from the Mainland China

12
Early Childhood Education System

• ECE workforce
• Predominantly female and local Chinese
• Mostly secondary school graduates
• Preservice professional qualification (starting
  from 2008)
• Teacher sub-degree
• Principal degree
• Minority teachers English, Putonghua, ethnic

13
ECE Resource Allocation

• Stages of development
• Rent Rates Reimbursement Scheme (1970s)
• Fee Remission Scheme (1980s)
• Kindergarten Child Care Center Subsidy Scheme
  (1990s)
• Voucher Scheme (recent)

14
Voices from the Field

• Yuen (2005)
• The issue of financial resources has been most
  contested.
• limited resources as the root problem of the
  many tensions and conflicts encountered by the
  field
• Intensification of the issue due to increasing
  social and policy pressures

15
Voices from the Field

• Social pressures
• Low birth rate
• Increasing poverty
• Changing population composition
• Family problems
• Cultural emphasis on education and achievement

Private operation Survival always comes first.
16
Voices from the Field

• Yuen (2005)
• A holistic rather than piece-meal approach to
  improving the provision of the field
• Direct subsidy to operation
• Teacher education, qualification, and salary
• Legislation and regulation
• Unification of the education and care services

17
Patterns of Officials Responses

• Yuen (in process)
• It was against the existing policies to provide
  any kind of direct subsidy to kindergartens.
• Financial support might not be truly economical
  or efficient.
• The control that came with direct subsidy was
  against the market operation of the field.
• It would be hard to justify using public dollars
  to subsidize profit-making kindergartens.
• The budget involved in subsidizing teacher salary
  was too substantial.

18
Patterns of Officials Responses

• Yuen (2005)
• A government official said,
• It would be best if a shirt has a collar and
  sleeves. When resources are limited, the
  priority is, of course, given to the
  universities.
• Post-secondary education
• Primary education
• Secondary education (12-year compulsory
  education)

19
Silencing the Voices

• Given something else in return (Yuen, 2005)
• R1 Adjusting tuition fee cap Fee Remission
  Scheme
• R2 Introducing Kindergarten and Child Care
  Center Subsidy Scheme
• R3 Adjusting tuition fee cap Fee Remission
  Scheme Kindergarten and Child Care Center
  Subsidy Scheme (keep changing the calculation
  method)
• R4 Subsiding teacher education rather than the
  field

20
Policy Emphasis on Teacher Education
Colonial Secondary school graduates with 2 passes Teacher 40 with short-term training by 1995 and initial training by 1997 HK163 millions for teacher education No preservice requirement SAR Secondary school graduates with 5 passes Teacher 100 with initial training by 2004 Principal 100 with sub-degree by 2005 More resource allocation Preservice requirement
21
Given Something Else in Return
Teacher Education and Qualification
Demand Preservice Initial training Sub-degree for teacher Degree for teacher Given Inservice Short-term training Initial training for teacher, sub-degree principal Sub-degree for teacher, Degree for principal
22
Policy as Discourse

• Moss Petrie (2002)
• we are spoken by policies, we take up the
  positions constructed for us within policies.
• may have the effect of redistributing voice,
  so that it does not matter what some people say
  or think, and only certain voices can be heard as
  meaningful or authoritative.

23
Notion of Quality

• Yuen (in process)
• It is the governments policy to provide
  quality kindergarten education in the private
  sector. To achieve the aim, the government has
  provided different financial assistance through
  rent reimbursement, the Kindergarten Subsidy
  Scheme, the Fee Remission Scheme, etc. . . .
  Parents have more choices and play a more active
  role in quality control when they share the cost
  . . . . The global trend nowadays is to rely
  less and less on public funds.

24
The Paradox

• Yuen (in process)
• In contrast to the declining quality of publicly
  funded primary and secondary education, the good
  private practice of early childhood education
  showcases the value of privatization and
  justifies the neo-liberal argument for a small or
  limited government.

25
HKSAR Education Reform

• Education Commission (2000)
• Early childhood education is
• the foundation of lifelong learning.

26
HKSAR Education Reform

• Building a new culture for quality early
  childhood education (Education Commission, 2000)
• Enhancing professional competence
• Enhancing the quality assurance mechanism
• Reforming the monitoring mechanism
• Enhancing the interface between early childhood
  and primary education
• Mode of subsidy

27
ECE Resource Allocation
Operator Rent Rates Reimbursement Kindergarten Child Care Subsidy Scheme Parent Fee Remission Scheme Voucher Scheme
1
2
3
28
Complete Market Approach
Operator (Provider)
Parent (Consumer)
Rent rates reimbursement KCC Subsidy Scheme
Fee Remission Scheme
29
Voucher System

• Designed with students best interests in mind
  (Education Bureau, 2006)
• Help reduce parents financial burden
• Support professional upgrading
• Improve educational quality
• Free choice stimulating competition
• Increasing institutional transparency
• Meeting performance standards self-evaluation
  and quality assurance inspection moving
  towards accreditation
• Funding implications

30
Patterns of Officials Responses

• Yuen (in process)
• It was against the existing policies to provide
  any kind of direct subsidy to kindergartens.
• Financial support might not be truly economical
  or efficient.
• The control that came with direct subsidy was
  against the market operation of the field.
• It would be hard to justify using public dollars
  to subsidize profit-making kindergartens.
• The budget involved in subsidizing teacher salary
  was too substantial.

31
Given Something Else in Return

• Yuen (in process)
• One teacher educator commented,
• The field only gets a share of the pie
• when there is money.

32
HKSAR Education Reform

Resources currently devoted to education Early childhood primary (22.9) Secondary (33.3) Post-secondary (34.7) Others (9.1) According priority to basic education Early childhood and primary education are a key stage where the foundation for lifelong is laid. When considering the allocation for any additional resources, priority should be given to early childhood and primary education.
(Education Commission, 2000)
33
Global Trends in ECE

• Grieshaber (2006)
• Increased spending by governments on the early
  years
• Quality assurance mechanism
• Imposition of standards, accreditation or
  assessment make ECE accountable for funding and
  outcomes
• Usually focusing on structural aspects, e.g.,
  staff-child ratios, group sizes, facilities and
  resources, staff qualifications, professional
  development

34
Discourse of Quality

• Dahlberg, Moss, Pence (1999)
• About the how rather than the why
• Bloch, Holmlund, Moqvist, Popkewitze (2003)
• A natural good of the private sphere over the
  public

35
Policy Debates on Voucher

• Yuen (2007)
• The unfamiliarity of the subject to the local
  community, including those in the field
• Mostly on the operational aspects of the policy
  without problematising the underlying assumptions
  made at the deeper level
• A general acceptance of the proposed scheme as a
  legitimate solution to issues concerning early
  childhood education in spite of the top-down
  nature of the policy and the lack of public
  consultation in the planning stage

36
Voucher in Hong Kong

• Lee Wong (2002)
• There is no conclusive evidence to show that
• the introduction of an education voucher system
  will improve the quality of education, although
  it will increase competition among participating
  schools.

37
Policy as Discourse

• Bakhtin (1981)
• Authoritative discourse demands unquestioned
  loyalty from those who are involved, as it
  assumes that utterances and their meanings cannot
  be changed in the process of communication.

38

• Moss Petrie (2002)
• Power produces regimes of truth
• Make assumptions and values invisible
• Turn subjective perspectives and understandings
  into apparently objective truths
• Pervasive influence
• Governance without overt coercion of people
• The ability to order and normalize, in particular
  through classification and categorization

39

• Effects of power/knowledge relationships
• (Bloch, Holmlund, Moqvist, Popkewitz, 2003)
• Form cultural reasoning systems that govern and
  regulate
• Produce inclusions, while maintaining exclusions
  of defining difference

40

• Early childhood education is normalized as
• A market place
• A production of competitive workforce (lifelong
  learning)
• A private responsibility (a natural good)
• A decorative stage of education (important but
  not essential)
• A exemplary model of progressive policy in a
  modern society

41
Exclusion/Inclusion

• Reproduce the pecking order of education by
  further marginalizing
• ECE from the education system
• Lifelong learning foundation but not basic
  education
• For private rather public good
• care from education in ECE

42
Exclusion/Inclusion
Exclusion Child care centers (ages 0-3) Nurseries (ages 3-6) full-day programs Teachers serving children aged 0-3 and working in full-day programs Children aged 0-3 attending child care centers and full-day programs Inclusion Kindergarten and nurseries (ages 3-6) half-day programs Teachers serving children aged 3-6 and working in half-day programs Children aged 3-6 attending kindergartens/nurseries and half-day programs
43

• Policy continues to perpetuate and widen
• the disparities between early childhood,
• primary, and secondary education

44

• Opper (1993)
• In brief, kindergarten education continues, as
  in the past, to be the Cinderella of the
  education system. As her two elder sisters,
  Primary and Secondary, prepare themselves for the
  ball organized by the Education Commission, she
  remains in the kitchen, neglected and despised,
  gleaning the meager droppings that fall from the
  Education Departments table. When, on when,
  will her fairy godmother arrive to wave a magic
  wand and change all this?

45

• Policy allows the oppressive forces embedded
• in the political, cultural, and institutional
  contexts of Hong Kong to sustain.
• Children of Tomorrow
• Where are the children of today?

46
The Us vs. The Other

• New governance after 1997 (Yuen, in process)
• one of us (colonized Chinese) and not one of
  them (colonizer British)
• Us includes
• Those who share the same Chinese heritage and
  hold the same belief in educating the younger
  generation
• Those who are no longer colonized
• In effect, the us is also the colonizer.

47

• Heck (2004)
• How we think about
• our problems determines
• both what we see and
• what we fail to see.