Hong Kong’s education system consistently ranks in the top three of the world’s most stressful education systems. Children are sent to after-school tutorial classes from kindergarten to keep up with the continuous assessments and assignments demanded by their schools. It is easy for them to fall behind without them, leading to stress from parents and teachers and fears of “repeating” the grade. Yet, despite the immense pressure that these students face, there seems to be little change in how education in Hong Kong works.
Whilst immensely stressful for students, education levels rank high. Still, schools in Hong Kong adopt a “spoon-feeding” teaching style where students are given learning materials that they are told to memorise verbatim, taking away potential creativity from them. Each core subject that is mandatory for all students to take, also contains a large amount of content, driving up their workload even more as they spend their days reciting all that they are given.
With schools being ranked in Hong Kong through the banding system, the pressure to get into a Band 1 school, also causes many parents to put their children into extra classes to fight for a spot in one of the higher-ranking schools. Thus, the workload is already substantially large from pre-primary as kindergarteners are forced to interview for all the top primary schools.
Furthermore, Hong Kong’s Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) - the public examination that local students take in their last year of secondary - is also ranked one of the most high-pressure exams in the world. Students are reported to feel immense pressure and suffer from various forms of mental illness due to the high DSE requirements that are needed to apply to universities.
Without tutoring and extra classes, students are unable to feel prepared for the exam and thus, most spare time is devoted to more academic studies outside of school.
The pressures of the education system in Hong Kong have undoubtedly affected the mental well-being of students. A 2021 survey by the HKFYG found that 52 per cent of the 3600 interviewed secondary school students exhibit signs of depression and 49 per cent were found to have higher stress levels since the beginning of the school year.
Student suicide rates have also been high since the introduction of the DSE in 2012. From 2016 to 2018, suicide was found to be the cause of 60 per cent of unnatural deaths in children. Many of these were brought on by academic pressure and stress from schools, demonstrating how harmful this education system is to the children of Hong Kong.
Still, no long-term changes have been made and there is a lack of adequate mental health support for these students. Adults, instead, say things like:
“Young people just have to get over the pressure. That’s life.”
This attitude towards academic stress in Hong Kong has stopped many students from speaking out on their struggles and thus, problems continue to rise as more and more children are silenced and unable to express their concerns. The normalisation of immense academic pressure is preventing a change in the system and this systemic issue in Hong Kong is unlikely to see a change for the better in the next few years.
The notorious Hong Kong education system has proven time and time again to be extremely harmful to students all over the city. The high-pressure examinations and the competition between families to send their children to the top-banding schools have given Hong Kong the title of one of the most stressful education systems in the world. Yet, this academic anxiety has been normalised and associated with the “culture” of Hong Kong, so while especially necessary, change is unlikely to occur unless those in power realise the detrimental effects this system has had on the children.
Sources:
Writing: Rin Kimura
Editing: Rachel Yu
Graphics: Summer Guo
Comments