General advice for family move to HK.

[helenasmith]

We are a family of 2 adults and 2 children (8 and 2 yrs). My Husband will be working in Quarry Bay. I will be, due to unavailabilty of schools, will be Home Educating. We would appreciate info from other families, (and I know you are out there!) in respect of 18k max for accomodation, good links for transport into Quarry, (upto 3/4 hr approx.travelling time), good facilites for children, etc. We do not want to live an ex-pat ''High Life'', however, but want to ''experience HK life. Quite a big ask, but I think it is doable! I look forward to hearing from you all!!

[PDLM]

I will be, due to unavailabilty of schools, will be Home Educating.

You understand that this is illegal?

[helenasmith]

I was unaware of this fact. Unknown to the school where we are now. How so?

[rani]

Helen,

You may be interested in joining this group of families who homeschool.

The Hong Kong Homeschool Meetup Group (Hong Kong) - Meetup

It is illegal, but I think more and more families will be forced to do it this year as school places are worse.

[carang]

it IS possible to get permission from the education dept to home-school, but it is EXTREMELY difficult to get. I was turned down as there is a local gov't school in our area that is designated as a school for non-Chinese speaking students. This was a new designation for the school and I was unaware it had been granted when I was considering schools.

Anyway, we applied for this school and my son was accepted. We are happy with it and am glad I don't have the pressure of home-schooling.

[helenasmith]

thank you for taking time out to reply. My understanding about home ed in hk was that it was acceptable for foreigners who were only going to be living temporarily in there. Also the off putting thing about schools is that they seem to ask for a ''Levy'' which is totally way beyond our means (£25,000.00!). We could afford fees but not this. Perhaps you might know something about the levys charged. Do you live in HK now? What areas wpould you reccommend for living etc. It would be nice to hear back from yout?

[helenasmith]

I was not aware that there were local government schools. Could you elaborate?

[helenasmith]

Many thanks for this link. Whereabouts are you in HK. Can you reccommend areas which are commteable to Quarry bay and child friendly with good accom rates??!!

[PDLM]

I was not aware that there were local government schools. Could you elaborate?

Surely every single country in the world has government-run schools?
Education Services for Non-Chinese Speaking students

[carang]

if you are open to the idea of trying a local school (for non-chinese speaking students), you could try living in sai kung. if you chose the side of sai kung that is closer to hang hau mtr station, then your hubby could either catch a mini bus to hang hau mtr station and your kids could go to school in sai kung (the gov't school for ncs students is LEE SIU YAM MEMORIAL PRIMARY SCHOOL). if you wanted, you could get a second-hand car or 2 and hubby could make use of the park'n'ride system, so he'd drive to the mtr and then take that.... you would also have more access to the rest of hk either by public transport or by car.