補習-Teachers make fee plea as exodus hits kindergartens

The Professional Teachers’ Union wants the government to allow kindergartens to increase tuition fees or launch 15 years of free education to stop the mass exodus of staff.

The union said full-day kindergartens lost on average 21 percent of their teachers in 2010, while at others the resignation rate was as high as 50 percent.

This was because salaries of teachers have been frozen or even reduced since the government introduced a nursery and pre-school subsidy scheme in 2007.

Under the scheme, which lasts for five years, students receive cash vouchers to help pay tuition fees.

Schools must not charge more than HK$48,000 for full-day classes or HK$24,000 for half-day sessions.

From September, each pupil will receive a HK$16,000 subsidy under the voucher scheme after the government earlier this year increased the amount by HK$2,000.

Union president Fung Wai-wah said yesterday with the introduction of the minimum hourly wage, rising inflation, rent increases and the ceiling on tuition fees, schools have little choice but to freeze or even reduce the salaries of teachers.

“Staff morale slipped further last week when the Pay Trend Survey was announced with big pay increases for those higher up in the scale,” Fung said.

Hong Kong Kindergarten Association chairwoman Mary Tong Siu-fun said keeping the fee cap unchanged may lead to more pay cuts.

“Staff wages account for about 80 percent of the overall operating cost. With the cap fixed for five years, and with schools forced to meet the minimum hourly wage for janitors, they will have no choice but to reduce the salaries of teachers or reduce staff,” Tong said.

Wong Siu-fung, president of Early Childhood Education Programs, Alumni Association of the Faculty of Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said teachers in 12 of 40 kindergartens in Northern District were paid less than HK$15,000 a month last year – the 2007 starting point for those with at least three years’ experience.

“Teachers who do not get an increase despite their additional experience will eventually leave,” Wong added.

An Education Bureau spokeswoman said the government is considering “whether to set the cap based on changes in the inflation rate.”