Great little piece by Alex Lo in today's SCMP:
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"Too much too young
Updated on Dec 03, 2009
Hong Kong parents are sick, sick, sick. Many project their own profound ignorance, twisted values and phobias onto their children in the hope of turning them into geniuses or CEOs, giving them a head start on everyone else or at least making them into their clones.
Predictably, this translates into heavy school work coupled with an insane amount of extracurricular activities. What's a kid to do after school? Take extra language lessons, learn two or more musical instruments and start doing maths a grade or two ahead of the rest. Children in poor countries are often made to work long hours; we should count ourselves lucky we make our children study for those hours.
This kind of all-work-and-no-play lifestyle for children has gone on for years, but the children who are subject to this de facto abuse are getting younger and younger. Not content with a normal kindergarten session, many parents are now sending their children to a second school in the afternoon. So now we have three- to six-year-olds who work longer hours than you or me at the office each day. And they may well have more homework to do.
The latest trend of enrolling children in two kindergartens stems from the free voucher scheme introduced by the government two years ago. It means: pay one, get one free, courtesy of the government. I do not blame the scheme for causing this new trend. It has many flaws, but one cannot argue against a programme that tries to extend free or subsidised schooling to kindergarten. It's the right thing for the government to do.
But, like everything else about the government's education reform, poor planning and implementation enable vested interests and parents to twist them into more child torture. The pre-primary voucher scheme entitles each child attending a non-profit kindergarten offering a Chinese-language curriculum - subject to a price ceiling - to receive a voucher worth HK$12,000.
So, parents send their children to a local school in the morning for free or the cost is partially subsidised, depending on the fees. And they use their own money to pay for an international or English-language kindergarten in the afternoon. Far from discouraging this practice, many kindergartens actively encourage it by ending some morning sessions early to enable pupils to change uniforms and prepare for afternoon classes at another school. And why not? Everyone gets a bigger slice of the pie.
An anonymous parent defended the practice on the parenthood website baby-kingdom.com: "After leaving half-day school, children raised by helpers and grannies usually just watch TV, play video games or take afternoon naps for the rest of the day. It is time wasting." Perhaps he should spend more quality time with his own children.
The practice also points to something deeply ugly about many Hong Kong people. When there is a free lunch, not taking it would be a crime. If you send your child to an international or English-language kindergarten, you forfeit your voucher. What fool would do that? Doubling kindergarten sessions can be seen as an easy way out of the dilemma, even if that means experimenting with your child's development.
Most parents mean well. They may well produce superior human beings this way. But I rather think they will create more stunted children who - when they reach teenage years - become profoundly incurious, self-centred, emotionally underdeveloped and lack independence. When they reach adulthood, their problems and inadequacies are transferred to the job market and the larger economy - a lack of entrepreneurship, curiosity, and communication and other interpersonal skills, as well as an inability to think independently and take risks. The life of the mind is not cultivated by mindless drilling. Nowhere else is Philip Larkin's infamous poem, This Be The Verse, truer than here:
"They f*** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you."
Alex Lo is a senior writer at the Post. [email protected]"