September school fees to be due in June

From Education Post (ESF clamps down on summer exodus):

The ESF has been dubbed the "elitist schools foundation" for imposing a deposit on parents from June to confirm their children will be returning after the summer holidays.

But the English Schools Foundation says the payment is necessary to avoid schools being left with vacancies in September as a result of a sudden exodus of pupils.

It has also warned that from this summer parents wishing to withdraw a child would have to give two months' notice in writing or risk forfeiting the money.

The deposit, which will be equivalent to the fees for September, brings the ESF in line with other international schools across the city.

The facts are that this is a real problem for the ESF. It's not uncommon for families to leave Hong Kong during the summer break, and unfortunately some of them fail to inform the ESF - and so the first the schools know about it is when the child doesn't arrive at the start of the Autumn term and the fees are not paid.

This not only costs the ESF money, it also prevents other children from taking up places.

ESF chief executive Heather Du Quesnay said the measure did not amount to a fee increase. "We lost more than 170 students over the summer last year from our primary schools," she said. "That's a huge loss. We were telling other parents no places were available when actually we could easily have taken them in. All we're asking parents to do is to treat us responsibly."

She said schools would offer assistance in cases of hardship, such as by giving longer to pay, but there would be no exceptions.

But parents say the deposit was imposed without consultation and would present a heavy financial burden for the less well-off.

Chris Green, who has a daughter at South Island School, said: "It just came out of the blue, a fait accompli. Parents don't seem to have been consulted at all." He said that having just paid up for the final term of the year, parents often held off paying for the first term of the new year, which was longer and more expensive, until August.

"Secondary fees for the third term - April to June - are $24,780 which we are asked to pay now. The first term of new school year fees are $33,040, which we will be asked to pay in June under the new edict instead of past practice, having up to the start of the new school year to pay," he said.

JE Dale, whose daughter attends Sha Tin College and whose son is on a waiting list said: "They should call it the elitist schools foundation. It is penalising normally good-paying parents because of the actions of a few. Not all of us are in the top salary bracket or on lucrative company packages. The ESF no longer serves the needs of the ordinary English-speaking students of Hong Kong, only wealthy ones."

However, chair of the Joint Council of Parent Teacher Associations, Jane Tracey, said: "It was discussed previously and we understand why it is being brought in. It is fairly common practice with other schools and fairer to students who can't find a place but who find that come September there are vacancies after they have already joined another school."

Yes, parents are being "penalised" because of the actions of a few, but the ESF are trying to discourage this behaviour and ensure that the schools are kept as full as possible - and ultimately this should help to keep school fees lower. It's very common to have to pay in advance for a service and to have a notice period, so I don't think the ESF is doing anything unusual.

Incidentally, I think J E Dale has misunderstood what is being proposed. The ESF is only asking for one month's fees in advance, not the whole Autumn Term.

Date set for new Ordinance to be proposed to the Legislative Council

Education Post reports that the bill to amend the ESF Ordinance will be introduced later this month (Legco to debate ESF reform bill):

The English Schools Foundation has revealed that real estate and construction sector legislator Abraham Shek Lai-him will propose its amendment bill to the Legislative Council.

The bill includes substantial changes to the organisation's governance. Legco's education panel is due to discuss the Ordinance (Amendment) Bill on March 22 before it is formally gazetted with the council.

The private member's bill, which was formulated after the Public Accounts Committee called for reform of the organisation's governance in 2005 and criticism by the Director of Audit, will replace the ESF's 130-member foundation and executive committee with a 25-member board of governors.

The board will consist of 10 independent members, seven parents, three ESF staff representatives, three school council members and two Legco members. ESF chief executive, Heather Du Quesnay will be a non-voting member.

Mr Shek, who was a member of the Public Accounts Committee, said he decided to propose the bill because he believed the continual development of the ESF was important for Hong Kong. He was confident the bill would be passed.

"I do not see why they won't pass a bill that strives to introduce improvement and recommendations of good governance to the foundation," he said.

ESF chairman Professor Felice Lieh Mak said the ESF was confident that the bill addressed the criticisms that had been levelled at the organisation.

The revision of the organisation's governing structure also sets the stage for negotiations over the future of the ESF's public funding.

Open days

As previously noted, the ESF continues to have waiting lists for many of its schools, but others are suffering from a shortage of applicants. Some re-zoning has been done, but that still leaves some schools with a problem.

To address this, four of the junior schools (Quarry Bay, Bradbury, Peak and Clearwater Bay) are having open days on Friday 2^nd March.

One thing to note about this is that starting from the next school year (2007/8), funding for ESF schools will be based on the number of pupils they enrol.

Recruitment

From today's Education Post (at the end of this article):

ESF begins teacher recruitment drive

The English Schools Foundation has begun its major recruitment drive for the year, seeking applications for 80 primary and secondary teaching positions. This year's intake will be the second cohort of teachers to be employed after salaries were cut by 5 per cent last year, following a remuneration review.

Peter Craughwell, the ESF's head of corporate communications, said teachers who were on contracts that predated the remuneration review would move on to the new conditions in September.

Mr Craughwell said 97 staff members had resigned this year, compared with 130 last year.

Last year Julian Harniess (then chair of the Association of Professional Teachers of ESF Schools) expressed the view that significantly more teachers would resign this year than did last year (ESF teachers are on 2 year contracts, so the theory was that they would wait until the contract ended before making a decision). It seems that this has not happened.

Actually, I'm not sure that this figure of 80 vacancies is correct - I heard 129 - but thankfully it seems that there hasn't been a huge exodus of teachers. I know that this is still a sensitive subject, so I won't make any comment except to say that, as a parent, I hope that the ESF can retain good teachers and attract high-quality candidates to replace those who are leaving.

Mr Craughwell said 1,089 applications were received this week but he expected the foundation would receive more over the weekend.

The ESF will hold interviews in Hong Kong early next month, followed by interviews in Australia and the UK.

The ESF has also advertised the position of director of education. The position, formerly known as education development director, is currently held by Graham Ranger. The advertisement says the director of education will be instrumental in shaping the foundation's educational policy.

As I understand it, Graham Ranger recently resigned from the ESF to take up a position as a principal of a school outside Hong Kong.

Also in today's Education Post

Foxcroft new head of West Island
Jane Foxcroft has been appointed the new head of West Island School, ending a selection process that has taken more than a year and involved two candidates rejecting the position.

Lamma parents start petition over zoning changes
Parents living on Lamma Island are upset that their children will have to attend a different English Schools Foundation school than previously planned due to zoning changes.

Re-zoning

One of the problems facing the ESF is that changing demographics are affecting the number of applications received by different schools. The biggest problems (as previously mentioned) are in Kowloon and the New Territories, where the population is expanding, but it also affects other areas where applications are falling.

Towards the end of last year, the ESF announced changes to the zoning. The most radical part of this is that the harbour is no longer a barrier, and so children from the West Kowloon reclamation area will be directed to Island School rather than KGV, and in the Tsing Yi area to Island School rather than Sha Tin College

In addition, primary school children from Lamma and Lantau (including Discovery Bay) will go to Bradbury rather than to Kennedy School. Some areas have been transferred to Clearwater Bay School from Kowloon Junior School and Sha Tin Junior School.

There are some obvious problems with this, particularly during the changeover period:

• Groups of friends/neighbours of similar ages going to different schools.
  
• Although younger siblings will be allowed to go to the same school as their older brother(s) or sister(s) that will mean that they will be separated from their local friends of the same age.

The journeys may be more difficult, which is obviously a concern (particularly with younger children) and it also creates some logistical difficulties with school bus arrangements.

Not quite there yet

I was looking for interesting news on the ESF website. The news section has this:

ESF News - October 2006

Developments in Chinese provision
We have now completed benchmarking of our Year 10 students. Over 70% are second language learners of Chinese and about 15% demonstrate near first language competence as defined by the IB curriculum framework. Read more

We have started writing our new Primary Chinese curriculum. This will be ready for the Primary Chinese Pilot Project which begins in January. We are currently defining the expected outcomes of the curriculum. Read more

Guess what? The links take you to the CLC* where you get a message saying that the downloads either don't exist or you're not allowed to read them. This website needs more work, methinks (it's most likely a problem with the CLC, but someone ought to check that the links work).

The Primary Chinese Pilot Project is actually quite an interesting initiative, so I'd like to write about it, but maybe another time.

* CLC = Connected Learning Community (the ESF's Intranet). Parents will be getting their own logon id's real soon now.

Still on schedule

From this week's Education Post (ESF closing on last hurdle):

The English Schools Foundation is set to overcome one of the last hurdles in changing its governance structure, with its new ordinance due to be gazetted around Christmas.

Chief executive Heather Du Quesnay said the ESF had secured a member to propose the ordinance, which includes substantial changes to the governance of the ESF, as a private member's bill. The identity of the member will be revealed when the bill is gazetted.

This week, at what is expected to be the ESF's last annual general meeting, Ms Du Quesnay said the ESF had received a legal draftsman's certificate that acknowledged the bill complied with legislation.

Ms Du Quesnay said she had met with a number of leading members of Legco, along with ESF chairwoman Felice Lieh Mak and "as far as we know people are favourably disposed" to the proposed changes.

"All of the conversations were very constructive. I think we were able to reassure them that the changes to the ordinance would meet all the concerns of the Public Accounts Committee," she said.

In June, ESF members voted in favour of draft amendments to the ESF ordinance that will replace the 133-member body with a 26-member board of governors.

The revisions provide the framework for wide-reaching reforms of governance and management. They address criticisms from the Director of Audit, the Legislative Council's Public Accounts Committee and Education Minister Arthur Li Kwok-cheung.

They will also set the stage for negotiations over the future of the ESF's public funding.

So it seems that it's still on schedule. Then we just have to hope that the negotiations on the subvention will be as straightforward as expected.

ESF unifies enrolments in line with ICAC advice

Still on the ICAC report, I see that The Standard has a different angle on the story (ESF unifies enrolments in line with ICAC advice):

The English Schools Foundation - known for being the largest provider of English-language education in Hong Kong - has reformed its process for student admissions, unifying enrolment for its 20 schools scattered across the territory.

The reforms in student admissions highlight one of 84 recommendations by the Independent Commission Against Corruption after 2 years of probing into the foundation's system of governance to eliminate possible loopholes for corruption.

According to ESF chief executive Heather Du Quesnay, the foundation, which had previously utilized a three-category system for applicants - students speaking English as first language, as second language and those speaking Cantonese and English - began placing students into two groups in September, which has simplified the process and eliminated all gray areas.

The two groups consist of native speakers who cannot access the local system at all and those who are able to enroll at local schools but would also benefit from English education.

"We have improved the admissions criteria to provide a clearer perspective for parents wishing to enroll their children in ESF schools," Du Quesnay said, adding that in previous years, employees of ESF had been approached by family members requesting help for their children in receiving placements at its schools.

"We wanted to be consistent and completely fair in handling student admissions," she said, insisting that guidelines for a standardized evaluation system will soon be in place to unify the foundation's 20 schools.

Schools in various geographical locations inevitably enforced different criteria for admission due to language diversity. "In the past, the admissions process varied in places such as Kowloon and The Peak," she said, noting that the prevalence of a greater English-speaking population would impose different criteria than those where very few Westerners resided.

ICAC lays down guidelines for the ESF

From today's Education Post, ICAC lays down guidelines for the ESF:

The Independent Commission Against Corruption has made more than 80 recommendations to ensure the English Schools Foundation avoids the type of conflict of interest that sparked uproar three years ago.

Carmel Chow Jun-lung, group head of the corruption prevention department, said the ICAC had not uncovered corruption but had identified many loose practices. These included inadequate guidelines for staff in their day-to-day work, existing guidelines occasionally not being followed and conflict of interest situations. The ESF had accepted all 84 recommendations and already implemented 60 per cent of them, he said. The remainder should be in place by the middle of next year.

Recommendations on conflicts of interest should prevent a member of a staff selection panel seeking the appointment himself half way through the process, Mr Chow said. This happened when former parent-teacher association chairman Mike Haynes applied for the post of chief executive.

"Everyone was aware that was not quite proper," Mr Chan said. He would not comment on how this could happen when John Shanahan, an ICAC chief investigator, was on the selection panel as the ESF's vice-chairman at the time.

For anyone who has forgotten, Mike Haynes was a member of the committee that was set up to find a new ESF Chief Executive. Then he decided to apply for the job himself, and he was chosen by the committee of which he had previously been a member. This was put to a vote of the full Foundation and defeated, following which the ESF chairman (Jal Shroff), vice-chairman (John Shanahan) and treasurer (Simon Glass) all resigned.

Comment: This sad episode is probably a prime example of what used to be wrong with the ESF. As I recall, at one stage it seemed that Mike Haynes's appointment was a "done deal", but a group of parents led by Christine Houston created a big fuss about it and persuaded enough members of the Foundation to vote against it. What I found hard to understand was why the ESF executive didn't realize that appointing someone in that way - especially someone without any relevant experience - could possibly be acceptable.

Thankfully, things have changed a great deal in the last few years.