Number of Primary One pupils in Hong Kong predicted to drop by 23% over 6 years

The number of Primary One pupils in Hong Kong will drop by 23 per cent over six years, education authorities have predicted, while announcing plans to tighten rules to make it harder for under-enrolled, government-funded schools to survive.

Deputy Secretary for Education Ida Lee Bik-sai said on Wednesday that the number of Primary One students in the city was expected to drop from 48,600 this year to 37,500 in 2031.

“It is expected that the number of school places and schools will decrease accordingly in the future as the school-age population changes,” she said.

Lee said that to ensure the integrity of schools’ overall class structures and make good use of public resources to provide a stable and effective teaching environment, the Education Bureau needed to optimise the options available to those facing enrolment problems.

She was referring to the new rules concerning survival options announced in a circular sent to all 454 government and aided schools in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

The bureau said that from the next academic year, schools that failed to enrol enough students to operate a subsidised Primary One class could not choose to privately fund it if they had already resorted to such a measure in the past six years.