“Future Ready Education 2022” is one of the new International Affairs and Community Development project launched by JCI Island. We deeply understand that Hong Kong parents are highly concerned about their child education and want their child to be successful in the future. In this connection, JCI Island would like to achieve the following objectives amid the COVID-19 pandemic:
- How parent in different countries cultivate their child
- Is the education system can cultivate our child that the society need in the future
- Sharing video from all over the world
- Inspiring Hong Kong Parents
Background
Hong Kong parents are highly concerned about their child education. We always read from the News that Hong Kong parents spend so many money for their child to join interest class. What is more, some famous primary schools even set up interview for admission of students. This reveals the high degree of competition between parents for their child early education.
UNESCO (聯合國教育、科學及文化組織) believes that education is a human right for all throughout life and that access must be matched by quality. So it is important to educate our child when they are young.
Why is it important in Hong Kong?
Hong Kong is a knowledge-based economy, many people in Hong Kong are highly educated and therefore there is an academic inflation here in Hong Kong. People who are highly educated have more chances in their career and can have upward socioeconomic mobility.
Moreover, as there are many families who have single child, they tend to love their child more and put more resources to educate them.
How parents from other nations educate their child
Hong Kong parents are highly concerned about their child education. We want to explore whether their method of educating their child is effective or not. Therefore, we co-host with our 6 sister chapters (JCI Makati, JCI Bukit Mertajam, JCI Taipei, JCI Manilena, JCI Seoul and JCI Sendai) to see how parents in other nations educate their child. We want to provide reference for Hong Kong parents how to better train up their child.
Is the education system can cultivate our child that the society need in the future?
Nowadays, technology is getting more and more advanced and what we learn in schools may not be useful for our work. For example typing words is not as useful as before when we have google voice that can help us showing words much more quicker. The same goes for mathematics. When we open calculator, we can get the answers more faster and accurately, so we don’t need to spend so many time memorizing those formula. This reveals that we spend so many time learning something that we may not be useful in the future.
Social Needs Analysis
Hong Kong parents are spending more than HK$1 million on their children’s education from primary school to university, about three times the global average, a study on 15 countries and regions has revealed.
At US$132,161(HK$1.03 million), parents in the city topped the study’s findings on education expenditure, exceeding that of Singapore, Taiwan and mainland China. The global average is US$44,221(HK$ 345,135).
Exhibit 1 – Average parental spend on their child’s education (US$)
Reference: HSBC
Social Issues Faced by Tiger Parents
Tiger parents is a form of strict parenting, whereby parents are highly invested in ensuring their children’s success. As the parents believe in setting high expectations in their children, the children feel overburdened and may result in anxiety and depressions.
Our Project Approach
[SDG3 Good Health and Well Being; SDG4 Quality Education; SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities] Through Future Ready Education, we want to promote quality education. We want to find out which method to educate child is the most effective and affordable to most Hong Kong parents so that they can follow. And when they use the suitable method to educate their child, it is also good for the personal development of their child and the relationship between parents and child will be great. [SDG3 Good Health and Well Being] Lastly, when our parents can educate more talent, it is also in the good shape of our society. [SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities]
Collaboration with Professional Partners for Sustainable Impact [SDG17 Partnership for the Goals]
To create more powerful impact, we would collaborate with our strategic partners (e.g. Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary School) for sustainable impact. It can help us to invite more Hong Kong parents to join our conference.
