aces
10.2 Provision of special education services
10.2.1 The aim of special education in Hong Kong, as a society promoting equal opportunities, is to provide children having SEN with special education services to help develop their potential to the full, achieve independence as much as they can, and adapt to the community well. Apart from local schools, some private schools including international schools also cater for SEN students in a non-local curriculum setting. Currently, in the international school sector, there is one special school operated by ESF to specifically cater for students with severe and complex SEN whereas other mainstream international schools (including ESF and other international schools) would cater for students with mild SEN.
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10.2.2 During in-depth interviews with the business sector, some pointed out that expatriate staff with SEN children might not come to Hong Kong if their SEN children could not find a school providing adequate special education services. Parent survey also found that 27.6% of the parents with SEN students would leave Hong Kong if no place from schools offering non-local curriculum was available in Hong Kong. Therefore, the availability of special education services meeting the needs of non-local families with SEN children is a consideration to their decision of coming/staying in Hong Kong.
10.2.3 In addition, according to the parent survey, parents with SEN children attending the ESF special school at the primary and secondary levels indicated that the processing time from submission of applications to successful admission to the school were on average about 17.3 months and 14.2 months respectively, which are much longer than the average processing time for all international primary and secondary levels at 6.5 months and 5.4 months respectively. During focus group discussions with parents with SEN children attending international schools, they raised concern over the long waiting time for admission to the ESF special school. They also lamented that that the special education support services provided by mainstream international schools were not sufficient.
However, it is difficult to ascertain the actual demand for different types/level of special education services in international schools. The children of parents surveyed under the current Study are only those already admitted to international schools (with or without special education services).
Recommendation 3
10.2.4 The current Study is not able to provide a comprehensive picture regarding the provision of special education services in international schools in Hong Kong, while it is noted that there were some concerns in this aspect. It is therefore recommended that the Government should conduct a further study on the provision of special education services in international schools in Hong Kong.
Recommendation 4
10.2.5 Given that the provision of special education services in international schools may influence the decision of some non-local families on whether to come to / stay in Hong Kong, it is recommended that the Government should continue to encourage the
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provision of special education services by existing and new mainstream international schools to cater for students with mild to moderate SEN in an integrated setting.
Recommendation 5
10.2.6 Some parents with SEN children studying in mainstream international schools may find both international and local schools viable options20, and findings of the current Study showed that being non-HKPR was the reason for not sending their children to local schools (including local special schools) (paragraph 6.2.9 refers) though in actual fact, eligible non-local non-HKPR residents in Hong Kong (e.g. non-HKPR children holding a dependent visa) are eligible to study in local schools. Hence, it is recommended that the Government should consider publicising the admission policy of local schools so that parents of non-local children may consider sending their children to local schools as an option.
20 6 and 7 parents with SEN children studying in mainstream international schools at primary and secondary levels respectively considered both international schools and local schools viable options. Caution should be taken in interpreting the figures due to the small sample size.
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Annex
Summary on the findings concerning Private Independent Schools (PIS)
1. In addition to the international schools, the school survey has covered four PISs and 134 parents with children studying in PISs as information was collated from PISs under the 2012 Study, and the major findings are set out in the ensuing paragraphs.
Findings from the survey with schools
2. Of the four PISs enumerated, all of them provided both primary and secondary education. It should be noted that the survey findings set out in the ensuing paragraphs only represent those responded to the survey. In 2015/16, there are a total of 7 PISs in Hong Kong offering non-local curriculum.
School admission mechanism
3. All of the enumerated PISs indicated that they had accorded priority to applicants with siblings studying in their school. 75.0% of them indicated that they had accorded priority to children whose parents were holders of debentures / nomination rights. 50.0% of the schools also stated that they had accorded priority to children of alumni and children of staff.
4. All of the enumerated PISs indicated that they had waiting list arrangement for applications for admissions. Among them, 75.0% included all applicants considered qualified for admission in the waiting list, whereas 25.0% only included applicants who are likely to have a chance of admission during the same school year. One school also had different arrangements for applications of different grades.
5. All of the enumerated PISs reported that, in the past year, they had enrolled students at the primary level from the waiting list, while 75.0% reported that they had enrolled students at the secondary level from the waiting list. The average percentage of students placed on the waiting lists who were subsequently admitted by the PISs is 26.1% for the primary level and 9.1% for the secondary level.
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Future provision of school places
6. The coming seven years’ plan for adjustment to provision of places was sought from the enumerated PISs. 75.0% of the schools indicated that they did not have plan to change their provision of places whereas 25.0% indicated that they had plans to do so. For the school having such plans, the measures to be adopted were “converting the use of some existing classrooms / special rooms”, “in situ expansion in existing school site” and “applying for allocation of vacant school premises”.
Findings from the survey with parents
7. A total of 134 parents with children studying in PISs were enumerated. The findings for this part of the survey have been grossed up statistically to represent views from all parents of PIS students.
Parents’ preference for types of schools
8. Parents’ preferences (expressed as percentage of parents indicating that they highly preferred or preferred) for different types of schools for their children were acquired. It is noted that at the primary level, 84.2% of parents with children studying in PISs highly preferred or preferred ESF or other international schools and that for PISs is 58.7%. For parents with children studying in PISs at secondary level, the respective rates are 92.7% and 66.0% respectively. The findings suggest that some of the parents may consider PISs as an alternative to enrolment in international schools at the time of application and eventually their children got admitted to PISs.
9. Analysing by residency status, about 89.2% of parents with local children studying in PISs highly preferred or preferred ESF or other international schools while the percentage for parents with non-local children studying in PISs is 91.3%. Concerning preference for PISs, about 63.0% and 63.1% of parents with local and non-local children studying in PISs highly preferred or preferred PISs.
On the other hand, schools under Direct Subsidy Scheme, private schools offering non-local curriculum and local government or aided schools are less preferred by both parents with local and non-local children.
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Application process
Average processing time taken from submission of application to successful admission
10. It took about 7.20 months on average from submission of applications to successful admission to PISs at the primary level. For the secondary level, the average processing time was 5.38 months. Relevant findings analysed by residency status are shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Average processing time (months) taken from submission of applications to successful admission analysed by residency status of the children
Average processing time (months) Primary Secondary Children as
Local Students 8.53 4.95
Non-local students 5.90 5.65
Average number of applications submitted
11. On average, including the schools in which their children were currently studying, parents with children studying in PISs at the primary level indicated that they had applied for 2.15 schools (including both international schools and PISs) at the time of admission and that for secondary level was 2.25 schools.
If only applications that were placed on the waiting list are counted (i.e.
excluding the schools in which their children were currently studying at), the average number of schools applied for was 1.35 at the primary level and 2.31 at the secondary level.
Difficulties encountered in finding international school / PISs places
12. The difficulties encountered by parents in finding international school / PISs places for their children attending PISs are shown in Table 2 below:
Table 2: % of parents encountering difficulties in finding international school / PISs places
Difficulties/problems encountered
Parents with children attending PISs at
primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level Waiting time for international schools / PISs I
prefer is too long 33.1% 29.9%
International schools / PISs I prefer are located too
far from our place of residence 25.3% 36.5%
4 Difficulties/problems encountered
Parents with children attending PISs at
primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level It is difficult for the children to get admitted to
international schools / PISs early in advance before my family members come to Hong Kong
8.1% 10.3%
Much time is required in applying for several international schools / PISs in order to increase the chance of being admitted into international schools
26.4% 20.1%
Little information is available on the quality of
teaching in different international schools / PISs 20.1% 37.4%
Some schools do not provide services for students
with special educational needs1 0.5% 0.5%
Some schools do not have sufficient facilities for
students with special educational needs1 0.0% 0.5%
Other problems2 1.9% 10.3%
No problem has been encountered 32.4% 23.9%
Note: Parents may choose more than one option for the question concerned and hence the percentages above do not add up to 100%.
Parents’ preference for types of curriculum
13. For both primary and secondary education, parents indicated that the quality of teaching staff was the most important factor affecting their choice of schools, regardless of residency status of their children. Please see Table 3 below for details.
Table 3: % of parents by perceived importance of factors affecting choice of school
Factors
% giving the score of Mean
score
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total*
Most important Least important
Location Local 6.6 4.7 9.9 12.4 26.7 35.6 3.9 100 4.7
Non-local 17.0 7.8 7.1 10.5 22.2 34.3 1.1 100 4.2 Total 11.9 6.3 9.6 11.2 24.5 34.2 2.3 100 4.4
Curriculum Local 34.7 26.9 7.4 19.4 7.6 3.9 0.0 100 2.5
Non-local 26.4 20.1 12.7 34.5 1.5 2.5 2.3 100 2.8 Total 30.3 24.2 10.0 27.0 4.2 3.1 1.2 100 2.7 Quality of
teaching staff
Local 14.8 46.8 16.2 12.9 5.3 3.9 0.0 100 2.6 Non-local 30.6 24.1 34.1 7.8 0.0 3.4 0.0 100 2.3 Total 24.2 34.5 25.4 9.9 2.4 3.6 0.0 100 2.4
1 This entry reflects response provided by parents with SEN children only.
2 Other problems include affordability, fierce competition and unclear interview details.
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Factors
% giving the score of Mean
score
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total*
Most important Least important Reputation Local 17.6 9.4 41.0 10.3 17.3 3.0 1.3 100 3.1
Non-local 6.0 26.7 28.3 12.1 20.0 5.9 1.1 100 3.4 Total 11.1 18.3 34.1 11.0 18.4 5.8 1.1 100 3.3 Prospect of
graduates
Local 13.1 5.3 7.8 28.6 17.3 26.3 1.5 100 4.2 Non-local 12.3 11.2 8.6 23.6 22.5 21.8 0.0 100 4.0 Total 12.4 8.3 8.1 26.0 21.1 23.4 0.7 100 4.1 Tuition fee Local 7.7 5.3 17.6 16.4 25.7 27.1 0.3 100 4.3 Non-local 3.4 10.1 9.2 11.5 33.7 31.1 1.1 100 4.6 Total 5.2 7.7 12.8 14.8 29.4 29.3 0.7 100 4.5
*Rounded to the nearest integer. For a particular factor, those parents without indicating ranking are excluded.
14. In addition, for children attending PISs at the primary level, a greater proportion of their parents highly preferred or preferred their children to study the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum (93.0%) whereas a relatively lower proportion of parents highly preferred or preferred their children to study the UK-based curriculum (49.9%) and the national curriculum of their original country (26.3%).
15. For children attending PISs at the secondary level, a greater proportion of their parents highly preferred or preferred their children to study IB curriculum (95.3%) whereas a relatively lower proportion of parents highly preferred or preferred their children to study the UK-based curriculum (53.8%) and the national curriculum of their original country (22.9%). Relevant findings and analysis by local/non-local students are shown in Tables 4 and 5 below.
Table 4: % of parents’ preference (highly preferred or preferred) on curriculum for students attending PISs
Curriculum highly preferred or preferred
Parents with children attending PISs at
primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level International Baccalaureate curriculum 93.0% 95.3%
UK-based curriculum (e.g. IGCSE) 49.9% 53.8%
National Curriculum of country of origin 26.3% 22.9%
Local curriculum 12.3% 9.8%
Note: Parents may choose more than one highly preferred or preferred option and hence the percentages above do not add up to 100%.
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Table 5: % of parents’ preference (highly preferred or preferred) on curriculum analysed by the residency status of the children attending PISs
Curriculum highly preferred or preferred
Parents with children attending PISs at primary
level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level Local
students
Non-local students
Local students
Non-local students International Baccalaureate
curriculum 90.2% 95.4% 94.5% 95.8%
UK-based curriculum (e.g. IGCSE) 63.9% 38.0% 64.4% 48.3%
National Curriculum of country of
origin N/A 49.2% N/A 41.5%
Local curriculum 8.3% 16.3% 11.1% 9.3%
Note: Parents may choose more than one highly preferred or preferred options and hence the percentages above do not add up to 100%.
Parents’ decision when there was no place from schools offering non-local curriculum
16. Parents of local and non-local students attending PISs would make different decision when there was no place from schools offering non-local curriculum.
More than 50% of the parents of local students at the primary level and more than 40% of parents of local students at the secondary level would send their children to attend local schools while the corresponding percentage for parents of non-local students is 27.8% and 21.2% respectively for the primary and secondary level. Furthermore, about 30% of non-local students at both the primary level and secondary level indicated that their whole families would leave Hong Kong should no place at schools offering non-local curriculum be available.
Table 6: % of parents by decision when there was no place from schools offering non-local curriculum analysed by the residency status of their children attending PISs
Decision of parents if there was no place from schools offering non-local
curriculum
Parents with children attending PISs at
primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level Local
students
Non-local students
Local students
Non-local students My whole family will leave Hong Kong 7.3% 30.9% 17.8% 28.0%
My family will stay in Hong Kong while
my children will go abroad 11.2% 4.6% 12.2% 8.5%
I will stay, but my spouse and children will
leave Hong Kong 2.4% 2.3% 0.0% 0.0%
My whole family will stay, and we will
send our children to attend local schools 51.2% 27.8% 41.1% 21.2%
Not decided yet 22.9% 29.4% 28.9% 33.1%
7 Decision of parents if there was no place from schools offering non-local
curriculum
Parents with children attending PISs at
primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level Local
students
Non-local students
Local students
Non-local students
Refused to answer 4.9% 5.0% 0.0% 9.3%
Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Plan to stay in Hong Kong
17. About 10.4% and 7.0% of parents with children studying in PISs at the primary level and secondary level respectively planned to leave Hong Kong in the coming seven years. Relevant findings are shown in Table 7 below. The above percentages should be interpreted with caution as considerable percentage of parents responded that they had no comments.
Table 7: % of parents by whether they planned to leave Hong Kong in coming seven years
Plans to leave Hong Kong
Parents with children attending PISs at primary
level
Parents with children attending PISs at
secondary level
I have no plan to leave Hong Kong 53.5% 58.0%
I have plan to leave Hong Kong in the
coming seven years 10.4% 7.0%
Others3 0.5% 4.7%
No comment 35.6% 30.3%
Total 100.0% 100.0%
18. No and 5.5% of parents with local children attending PISs at the primary and secondary level respectively indicated that they planned to leave Hong Kong in the coming seven years. For parents with non-local children studying in PISs, the corresponding figures are 20.5% and 8.5% at the primary and secondary level respectively. Relevant findings are shown in Table 8 below.
Table 8: % of parents by comment on length of stay in Hong Kong analysed by the residency status of their children
Comments on length of stay
Parents with children attending PISs at primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at secondary level Local Students Non-local
Students Local Students Non-local Students I have no plan to
leave Hong Kong 61.0% 45.3% 58.9% 60.1%
3 “Others” refers to those who have indicated a plan to leave Hong Kong, but have no concrete timeframe in mind.
8 Comments on
length of stay
Parents with children attending PISs at primary level
Parents with children attending PISs at secondary level Local Students Non-local
Students Local Students Non-local Students I have plan to
leave Hong Kong, with breakdown by length of stay:
0.0% 20.5% 5.5% 8.5%
For around
1-2 years 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
For around
3-5 years 0.0% 5.5% 5.5% 4.2%
For around
6-7 years 0.0% 15.0% 0.0% 4.2%
Others4 0.0% 1.0% 0.0% 8.5%
No comment 39.0% 33.3% 35.6% 22.9%
Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Findings on the Provision of Special Education Services
Schools’ views on provision of special education services
Provision of school places for students with special educational needs (SEN)
19. 75.0% of the enumerated PISs incidated that they had provided special education services to children with SEN and the major types of SEN catered by these schools were Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing (100.0%), Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (66.7%) and Autistic Spectrum Disorders (66.7%).
Admission policy for SEN students
20. 50.0% of the enumerated PISs indicated that they had admission policy for SEN students and the policies included “confining to students with mild SEN” and
“only particular types of SEN students will be admitted”.
Collection of additional fees from students receiving special education service
21. None of the enumerated PISs that had admitted students with SEN collected additional fees from students receiving education services provided by the schools.
4 “Others” refers to those who have indicated a plan to leave Hong Kong, but have no concrete timeframe in mind.
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Difficulties encountered in providing special education services
22. Among the enumerated PISs admitting students with SEN, all of them replied that they had encountered difficulties in providing special education services.
They indicated that some students with SEN required intensive support services for which the school might not be able to fully meet the cost and they had difficulties in financing the cost involved in providing special education services.
Furthermore, 66.7% indicated that the progress of learning and teaching for other non-SEN students would be affected by diverting staff resources to provide special education services and they had difficulties in recruiting staff with training in special education.
Parents’ views on provision of special education services5
Residency status and parents’ preference for school and aided special school
23. Among the 26 parents with SEN children completing the parent questionnaires with additional questions on SEN, 11 of them are with non-local SEN children while 15 of them are with local SEN children.
24. 31.7% and 0.0% of the parents with SEN children studying in PISs at the primary and secondary level respectively preferred or highly preferred the ESF special school at the time of application, while 92.5 and 100% preferred ESF or other international schools. This indicates that most of the parents preferred ESF or other international schools to the ESF special school.
Reasons for sending SEN children to study in international schools / PISs
25. For parents with SEN children studying in PISs, the main reasons for sending their children to study in PISs or international schools included “more flexible/interactive learning in international school / PISs” (92.5% and 94.1% for primary and secondary level respectively), “more relaxed learning environment and less study pressure in international school / PISs” (85.0% and 75.3%
respectively) and “quality of learning and teaching is better in international schools / PISs” (73.8% and 56.5% respectively).
Difficulties encountered in finding places in international schools / PISs
26. Among parents with SEN children studying in PISs at the primary level, the major difficulties encountered in finding international school / PISs places for
5 Caution should be taken in interpreting the figures in this section due to the small sample size (26 parents with SEN children studying in PIS).
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their children included “waiting time for international schools / PISs I prefer is too long” (58.8% of parents concerned) and “international schools / PISs I prefer are located too far from our place of residence” (50.4%). For parents with SEN children attending PISs at the secondary level, the majority (76.2%) has not encountered any problem.
Whether the parents and/or their families would leave Hong Kong if no places form schools offering non-local curriculum was available in Hong Kong
27. About 28.0% of the parents with SEN children attending PISs at the primary level would leave Hong Kong if there were no place available in schools offering non-local curriculum. Separately, for parents with SEN children studying at the secondary level in PISs, more would choose to send their children to attend local school than to leave Hong Kong if no place from schools offering non-local curriculum was available. Relevant findings are shown in Table 9 below. It should be noted that a significant proportion of the parents have not decided on this question, and the finding should be interpreted with caution.
Table 9: % of parents with SEN children by whether they (and their families) would leave Hong Kong if no place from schools offering non-local curriculum was available in Hong Kong
Whether to leave Hong Kong if no place from schools offering non-local curriculum was available
% of parents with SEN children
Primary Secondary
Local Non-local Total Local Non-local Total My whole family will leave Hong
Kong 0.0% 44.7% 28.0% 20.0% 100.0% 24.7%
My whole family will stay, while we will send our children to attend local schools
50.0% 0.0% 18.7% 40.0% 0.0% 37.6%
My family will stay in Hong Kong and
my children will go abroad 30.0% 0.0% 11.2% 20.0% 0.0% 18.8%
I will stay, but my spouse and children
will leave Hong Kong 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Not decided yet 20.0% 43.3% 34.6% 20.0% 0.0% 18.8%
Refused to answer 0.0% 12.0% 7.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%