GOOD teachers (the ones with skills, passion....) are definitely well underpaid.
I don't think that teachers in International Schools in HK are underpaid.
I have to agree that it's rarely the best minds that decide to go into teaching particularly in primary and secondary however you certainly don't need to be a genius to be a brilliant teacher. I think that a master of the content can sometimes be less effective than someone that is simply competent in it depending on their personalities and how well the interact with students. It's pretty hard to fill a container if the lid is closed...
There's so much more to teaching than relating content and there's so much more to learning than gobbling up facts or grammatical rules...
If people are criticising HK education for failing to provide kids with decent English language education, it might be worth pointing out that around 24% of children in the UK are functionally illiterate when they leave primary school. Education systems the world over are not perfect and come nowhere close to enabling every student to reach their full potential, but in terms of the English language ability of the general population, I think HK could be doing much much worse.
native english teachers/foreign teachers in both local and international schools are definitely NOT underpaid and they even get flat+utilities allowance. good for them but bad for the local teachers' morale!
am i the only one to think that we should also look into our kid's ability rather than blaming the HK education system/teachers/etc.?
Absolutely agree in terms of NETs/IntSchool teachers in HK comparative to locals. Absolutely disagree in terms of teachers' salaries in general comparative to other (less 'important'??) professions. But that's the same for any public sector jobs (police, fire service, etc. etc.) I feel.
Back to the OP, though...
I've experienced local education back in the 80s when I was in primary school in HK, and I've experienced education in the UK throughout the whole of the 90s and early 00s, and I have to say I have reservations about sending my daughter to a local school. My sister sends her daughter to a local school, the best in the area apparently, and her daughter is always stressed, the competition very intense. I went with her once or twice to get her school report when I happened to be in HK and all the mothers gathered around to compare results. I was actually surprised that parents had to go to get the results...
After seeing what my niece is going through (and remembering my own experience), I am not sure I want my daughter to go through the same thing. I also think the IB programme is a very good one and one I want my daughter to follow. I don't want her to spend her whole life studying and nothing else.