Hong Kong authorities order soon-to-close kindergarten to reimburse parents for funding towards apparent campus improvements
- Education Bureau told the Post it instructed Rightmind Kindergarten to return the funds, after school said it would shut in July over lack of suitable investors
- Kindergarten operator had invited parents to contribute HK$23,000 per child into a ‘Capital Contribution Scheme’ meant to ‘update, maintain and improve’ the campus
Hong Kong’s education authorities have ordered a soon-to-close private kindergarten to reimburse parents for contributions that the school has said is refundable and intended for campus facility improvements.
Rightmind, based in the South Horizons housing estate in Southern district, had invited parents to contribute HK$23,000 (US$2,940) per child into a “Capital Contribution Scheme” meant to “update, maintain and improve” school facilities.
That ‘capital fee’ was on top of a regular school fee of HK$8,330 per month charged by the school.
“The amount of HK$23,000 is non-interest bearing, non-transferable and refundable to the contributor in the year that the student graduates K3,” according to a circular seen by the Post.
Parents could choose to “agree” or “disagree” with the terms of the scheme in the reply slip of the circular.
A parent told the Post that several others who had contributed to the Capital Contribution Fund had not received refunds, while the school was also non-committal about offering reimbursements.
In its letter to parents announcing its closure, Rightmind said it would offer a list of Capital Contribution Fund holders to an Official Receiver’s Office and all of them would be “placed among outstanding creditors of the school”.
It also offered an apology to the parents affected.
“When I called the school, vice-principal Ankie Tsang said lots of parents who paid in 2017 still haven’t got their refunds, let alone someone like me who paid for the Capital Contribution Fund after 2017,” a parent, who preferred to stay anonymous, said.
“She said she doesn’t know when we would get refunded, and that we might not be refunded at all.”
The complainant accused the school management of using bankruptcy as an excuse to refuse or “indefinitely delay” the refund, saying there were 200 parents who were “scammed”.
The school operator had already shut another campus earlier in nearby Shum Wan.
The Post has approached the operator twice for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Education Bureau said it had issued a letter instructing the school to properly handle matters related to its closure.
“It includes the funds paid by parents such as new student registration fees and refunding the kindergarten capital fee to relevant parents as soon as possible, according to the agreement,” she said.
She also urged the school to discuss a mutually satisfactory solution with parents.
Hong Kong’s early childhood education sector has suffered from a shrinking student population amid an emigration wave, with private preschools catering mostly to middle-class families bearing the brunt.
In the current school year, there are 1,099 kindergartens in the city, with 67 per cent or 738, subsidised by the government. The rest are private independent and international preschools.
The Education Bureau earlier told the Post that 14 kindergartens would cease operations by the end of the current school year, including one merging with other schools.
However, six new kindergartens had also registered and another four were applying for registration, the bureau said.
The number of children studying in K1 has seen a decline in recent years, dropping 16 per cent from around 50,000 in September 2021 to 42,200 in September 2023.
Preschool enrolment is expected to decline in the coming three years with the number of births falling below 40,000, and standing at 37,000 in 2021, 32,500 in 2022 and 33,200 in 2023.
