*Updated on 13 November 2010*
A reader asked us how much fees we were paying for Rockstar to attend ESF Kindergarten sometime back… And then the school Halloween party took up most of my brain cells for awhile, since I don’t have that many…
(This is where readers should feel free to jump in with “What, you? No! Not at all! You are one of the Great Thinkers Of Your Time, Aileen!!” Anybody? Anyone other than my husband? Not even my husband?)
So anyway Dear Reader, this one’s for you…
Rockstar’s Kindergarten fees, on their website here, are currently HKD 5,360 per month for 10 months. (And if you wanted to know what their pri and sec fees are like, that’s here.) And there’s a HKD 300 non-refundable application fee (which is quite common).
Not that many schools in HK are government run, most are instead run by sponsoring bodies (many of which are Christian) who receive a government grant.
ESF (English Schools Foundation) gets a subsidy from the HK government to provide education for English speaking children who can’t access the local system. (But at press time, the ESF Kindergarten Rockstar is attending doesn’t receive a subsidy.)
(So Rockstar is a “Category 1” child, ie a child whose first language is English and needs to go to an English-medium school. Some locals have explained to me English-medium schools are quite desirable to them as well, but if their child’s first language is Cantonese, they would be classified as “non-Cat 1” when they apply for ESF. A lot of their interview, Rockstar’s future headmaster explained, was to ensure the child was sufficiently responsive in English.)
There’s currently a debate about whether ESF should continue to receive the ongoing subsidy from the HK government which needs to cut costs after the Asian Financial Crisis.
Wikipedia has more. But in a nutshell, ESF has been criticized for extravagance in their use of the public’s money especially when other international schools don’t get subsidies. On the other hand, local schools do receive a subsidy. ESF is kind of somewhere in between, and the result of one of the main talking points (by no means the only one) would depend on whether many parents whose children attend ESF could afford the higher fees if they take away the subsidy (making them more like “atas” international schools).
Now here’s why this makes a blog post:
Obviously no one wants to pay more money than they have to. But here’s where I open mouth insert Marc Jacobs-booted foot and say that, bearing in mind Rockstar is one of those kids whose parents are probably blessed enough to afford a fee hike from ESF going fully private, it’s less about the money than it is about staff attitudes, quality of education and simply whether our son is happy and doing well there.
I believe that whatever else parents here may try to save on, education is really not one of them. To me that’s like someone splurging on a limited edition Louis Vuitton bag and then filling their body with cheap, crappy fastfood instead of the fresh organic stuff from 360. Heck, you can buy the Louis Vuitton bag at Milan Station, and there are all these websites selling vintage Chanel…. but you can’t skimp on nutrition. I just think you don’t skimp on what goes into your body (or for that matter your child’s body) – and therefore also what enters their young minds. Those are long-term investments.
If something went wrong with your body from eating too much junk, it’d cost way more in doctor’s fees to fix. Or a therapist for your child.
Kindergarten teachers can apparently also end up getting paid some 30-40% less than primary school teachers. That kinda sucks. You don’t get potentially 80 bawling schoolkids on the first day of primary school do you? And I’m guessing there are fewer “toilet accidents” too…
Not convinced? How about the fact that at the tender age of 2 years 9 months and up, your child might not be able to adequately tell you if they have been say, shamed for wetting their pants (and let me be clear this is hypothetical and in no way Rockstar-or-ESF-related) or develops some hangup from school staff that aren’t equipped to handle a particular situation correctly?
The basic law of demand and supply is when you pay peanuts you risk attracting monkeys. If we think about it, I don’t think any parent would want a monkey handling our child. We want the best. Maybe this is a banking thing Kings and I developed from our jobs, but to us, pay good staff lousy salary for long enough and they’re gonna look for something else to do that pays better. The good ones are the ones with the ability to look for a better-paying opportunity. Don’t want lousy staff? I think they’re only gonna get crowded out by the good staff if, well, enough good staff want the job.
Thing is, I also want happy staff. I want people handling my kid in school who can smile encouragingly and say “it was a good effort, you almost got that, try again,” not “oh this is a problem.” “Oh not again.” Not that I’m saying anyone said that to Rockstar, it’s what I feel like saying if I’m having a crappy day. And I’ve only got one child. And he’s my flesh and blood.
I don’t suppose we can dope the teachers up on Happy Smiling Juice before they handle our children so I guess we’ll have to try to keep them some reasonable measure of happy for real. I suppose. If we must.
Meeting Rockstar in his ESF uniform after school regularly attracts curiosity from other toddler parents – we live relatively far (at least a 20 minute drive) from the school so there are fewer turquoise-and-navy-uniformed pre-schoolers in our regular café hangouts.
Rockstar, a Babycinno (foamed milk) and a bad haircut
And a toothie tiger bean bag
We get asked often if we’re happy with the school, especially with the ongoing heat
ESF gets (most recently on 31 Oct in South China Morning Post:
1. “ESF parents have been warned they might jeopardize negotiations re government subsidies if they continue to voice concerns in the press.”
(Translation: bitch some more to the press and you could end up paying more fees.)
2. Then there was the HKD 25,000 refundable deposit introduction and ruling out of fee freezes.
WE ARE. You know, re the question are we happy at the school. (See, you got sidetracked too right, after all that noise about fees and misuse of funds.)
I blogged about why, when Rockstar first got in and we haven’t been given any reason to change that assessment. Yet, anyway.
(Rockstar probably likes it a little less than we do. He thinks there are too many “silly” girls in his class wearing pretty party dresses for Halloween Dress Up Day. Wait til I show him this in another 20 years.)
Thing is, I wouldn’t have thought many parents want to create fuss and bother simply to create fuss and bother, when their children are attending the school.
Show a parent WHY something that costs THAT much more is THAT much better for their child and I would think they’d be fine with it.
On the other hand, parent or no, no one likes feeling like they’re taken for a ride with their money.
Oh. So thaa-ats why ESF sent us the mail inviting us to talks where the school explains how their finances work <ding>
I’m not going. Too lazy. See how I forfeited my right to voice a legitimate opinion about fee hikes there?
Ah well. I’m content hanging out with the Rockstar. We’ll spend the time shopping for more Bob The Builder books and riding the Bubble Lift up and down at Times Square… I’ll get the notes from a classmate.
But if the school ever neglects a hair on my Rockstar’s head in the classroom watch me grow fangs and claws. Don’t mess with the Mummy monster. We had all those birthing hormones.
PS: I am one of the volunteering parents with ockstar’s Kindergarten, for organizing extra events for the kids, though… There is no funding for that – we pay for venue rentals, food etc with our own money, then look to recover our costs by splitting with the other parents who bring their kids to the events thereafter.
We run the very real risk of events flopping and our having to pay for it out of our own pockets. Oh, and then there are the hurriedly-typed last minute emails just before the event, sent from other parents at work before they rush out the door to bring their kids, “So where is the party again?” because they don’t have their child’s parent-teacher diary with them at work or are already so late leaving the office they can’t dig up the school emails.
This round I also uploaded all the pics from our camera (after taking lots for other families) onto one of those photosharing websites and encouraged the other participating parents in Rockstar’s year to do the same, thinking great shots of your children aren’t always easy to come by and a great shot of someone else’s child in my camera would probably be a lot more valuable to that someone…
The broader picture (sorry) is let’s work together and make it a super school. Your child goes here.
Why’m I volunteering?
1. To make sure a relatively more reserved, smaller and younger Rockstar gets on fine in school. And so he knows I care. (Same as some of the other mums).
2. I used to be That Working Parent. I’ve been blessed that I get to take the time off. It’s the least I can do. (Bearing in mind local friends once commented, “Some parents might get involved to have a louder voice and to push agendas.” But that was absolutely NOT related to ESF fees. It was a general comment that came with “Don’t you know, people in HK are known for complaining” – which was about taxi and bank queues.)
