Is It Education – Education in Hong Kong

Education is of utmost importance as it makes a great impact on a person’s whole life. In Finland, kids at the age of 6 or earlier do not have to go to schools, but learn at home through playing games and interacting with people. The teachers there accompany the same group of students for a long time owing to the 9-year compulsory educational system. In Hong Kong, however, ‘education’ seems to have lost its meaning and the educational system is still problematic despite several modifications. The first and major problem is being too examination-oriented.
This can be explained by the popularity of tutorial schools. Those ‘super tutors’ focus on helping students acquire a satisfied result in the examination. Many students seek help from them since whether they can further their studies mainly depends on their academic results. Another piece of evidence can be found on our textbooks. Many of them include a particular section merely for the examinations, such as ‘exam tips’, ‘exam skills’ or ‘exam practice’. This also reflects the phenomenon of examination- orientation. Setting academic results as the major criterion of school entry has twisted people’s receptions of education.
The existing educational system puts much emphasis on students’ academic performance and neglects the significance of developing other aspects, including moral cultivation, life education and other abilities like interpersonal skills. As a result, people seem to have forgotten what the aims of education actually are. Apart from this problem, some social issues have arisen from Hong Gong’s ‘education’. One of them is the problem of impoverishment, especially the intergenerational poverty and youth poverty. The former one becomes more severe hen the educational system does not allow poor students to get rid of it via education.

The latter one can be resulted when the tuition fees of universities are so high that some students have to grant loans from the government and repay them even when they have been working for years. Hong Kong government has spent many resources on education, though, there are still a multitude of problems that the government has to solve. Not only has it become too exam-orientated, but it also deepens some social problems. What the society wants is a real and comprehensive education which allows students to fully utilize their abilities.