Current Projects
Currently our projects involve building standards for local English-medium pre-schools and addressing issues of importance for Hong Kong pre-school through research papers and policy statement.
Project: Policy statement regarding the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS)
Summary: HKPPA has been concerned that our member schools have been unable to participate in the voucher scheme. This scheme was introduced in 2007. It subsidises parents for kindergarten fees and provides a variety of direct government support and subsidies to schools. We have become concerned about the implementation of the scheme for two main reasons. 1) It appears to discriminates against non-Cantonese speaking children; and 2) schools that have fees higher than the specified cap of the programme (like ours) are barred from participating in subsidies that support school improvement that the Education Bureau offers, such as Quality Assurance. We submitted a policy statement to the Education Bureau and have requested they consider our statement as part of their planned review process of the voucher scheme. The South China Morning Post reported on the story (25-26 February 2010)
Here is an excerpt from our press release:
“The Hong Kong Pre-School Playgroups Association today criticised the Education Bureau’s implementation of Hong Kong’s Pre-Primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS), alleging that EDB officials have unilaterally modified the programme to unlawfully exclude non-Chinese-speaking children from participation.Click here to read the Policy Statement
Click here to read the South China Morning Post Article
Click here to read the Editorial