Hong Kong Sets Record Teacher Turnover Rate

“Being a teacher in Hong Kong is no longer a dignified profession,” said Yeung Wing-yu, a former manager of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority.

Hong Kong has seen a record high teacher turnover rate in recent years. Sung Pi-Lung/The Epoch Times

Hong Kong has seen a record-high teacher turnover rate in recent years. Experts attributed it to the frequent change of policies and the increasing pressure on teachers, while some predict that the authorities will speed up introducing mainland teachers to implement “socialist and patriotic education” in the city.

In its written reply to a question raised by a member of the Legislative Council on Jan. 10, the Education Bureau disclosed that in the last school year, there was a loss of 2,665 teachers in secondary schools, 2,036 in primary schools, and 1,810 in kindergartens, representing year-on-year increases of 24.5 percent, 18.9 percent, and 33.5 percent respectively.

This is the third consecutive year in which the teacher turnover rates increased after the Hong Kong National Security Law was implemented in June 2020. The Education Bureau attributed it to retirement, further studies, transfer to other types of schools, change of profession, and other private reasons.

Increased Pressure on Teachers

Mr. Tang (a pseudonym), who used to teach Chinese Language in a secondary school and left the profession in September 2023 for personal reasons, believes that there are multiple reasons for the high turnover rate.

“Firstly, many teachers emigrated. In the past few years, dozens of teachers around me have gone to foreign countries,” he told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times.

Secondly, the workload of teachers has increased in recent years. “There are new subjects in secondary schools and primary schools… There’s certainly more pressure in disguise.”

“The social pressure is also high, with more students committing suicide, which means that teachers have to do more work,” he continued. “As the number of students decreases, some schools, even government schools, had to merge. Fewer substantive vacancies may also lead to a group of teachers looking for other jobs, or even switching to other professions.”

Teaching Quality Affected in the Long Run

Although teachers’ salaries are not bad, with a starting salary of about $34,000 for primary and secondary school teachers, more and more teachers are leaving the profession.

Mr. Tang believes that it is related to the high pressure: “The whole environment is unhappy. Students’ emotional health is not good; teachers are busy; the Education Bureau is always changing its policies, but the number of vacancies is not increasing. The society’s expectation on teachers is high, so even though teachers’ salary is high, the pressure on them is not low.”

“Even if it’s just a change of school, it reflects that people are dissatisfied with their current positions, which will affect the quality of teaching in the long run, because schools are very much in pursuit of a stable teaching team,” he said, citing the example of a high school his friend works in, which changes teachers every year for the same subject.

Teaching Follows Policy Changes, Not Needs

There are also suggestions that teachers have been at a loss as to what to do about the national security element in the syllabus.

“The problem is that many of the current education policies do not really follow the needs of students and education, but rather follow government policies,” the former teacher argued. While he could not confirm if this would lead to the resignation of teachers, he believes that “teachers who are really committed will find this practice problematic.”

“Those who are not committed won’t be able to teach well anyway, which is not a good thing for the students.”

One example is that the authorities committed to splitting the “General Studies” subject into “Science” and “Humanities” in primary schools.

General Studies, if fine-tuned, could already cover the split subjects and even the newly added elements of “patriotic education,” Mr. Tang contended. “But it insisted on changing from one subject to two subjects… Nowadays, primary school students already have many class hours. They have to attend classes all day long, and there are also extra-curricular activities, so the pressure on students to study has not been reduced.”

Under such circumstances, teachers, other than coping with teaching and extra-curricular activities, need to learn new subjects as well.

“Many of them have emigrated to the UK,” he said. “Most of them have children. Maybe they realize that it’s not a good thing for the children to study in Hong Kong in this way, right?”

Teachers Have to Accept CCP ideology

Hans Yeung Wing-yu, the former manager of the Assessment Development Division of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA), believes that the rising teacher turnover rate in recent years is “a natural consequence of the changing political situation.”

Being a teacher in Hong Kong is “basically like being a ‘patriotic missionary,’” he told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Yeung explained that before joining the profession, one has to go to mainland China to attend a class; new recruits have to undergo training on national security, and when in service, they have to incorporate national security education into all subjects.

An 18-year-old high school student who was injured in the 2019 anti-extradition movement was standing outside a university in Hong Kong on June 2, 2020. Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images

“[They] have to keep reminding themselves that they must not say anything bad about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or China,” he said, adding that even STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education are explicitly told to include “value education” about the CCP ideology.

With the abolition of the Council on Professional Conduct in Education in 2022, “Today, the Education Bureau can DQ [disqualify] teachers at any time and at will.”

“The profession goes down the drain, and their jobs hang by a thread. Being a teacher in Hong Kong is no longer a dignified profession.”

More Mainland Teachers Expected

Mr. Yeung analyzed that the loss of teachers would bring more unstable factors in the short term.

There will be instability among teachers, who will think, “All my good colleagues have left. When should I resign?” In addition, with more vacancies, more teachers will be tempted to look for better jobs and jump ship when the time comes.

It is predicted that the authorities will speed up the introduction of teachers from mainland China, which would accelerate the process of Mandarin becoming the medium of instruction and the mainland teaching models entering Hong Kong.

“The socialist and patriotic education that the new teachers observe in mainland schools will be seen in Hong Kong schools in the near future,” he said.

School Lost Free Space for Discussion

Mr. Lam, a former student of a famous Hong Kong school with a history of over 100 years, has seen dozens quitting the school every year since 2020, which makes him feel pessimistic about the future.

According to Mr. Lam, during the three years he studied in the school, teachers did not dare to communicate openly with students.

“Even if there are those few teachers who want to tell the truth, they can only hint at it, or avoid the important and dwell on the trivial,” he told The Epoch Times.

In 2023, the Education Bureau required all Year 11 students to join an exchange trip to mainland China for “patriotic education.” While not wanting to leave his friends, Mr. Lam, who is now in Year 9 and seeing that it would soon be his turn, finally agreed with his parents to send him to the United States to study.

The school had quite a lot of free space before 2019, based on what Mr. Lam remembers. Every year, large banners commemorating the June 4 massacre would be put up; During the anti-extradition movement, students built human chains outside the school to express their demands; and students would usually discuss various social issues freely with their teachers.

High school students attended a rally protesting the extradition bill and calling for international support in Hong Kong on Aug. 22, 2019. Shenghua Sung/NTD News

However, after the Hong Kong National Security Law was implemented in 2020, the discussions ceased, and “the democratic wall in the school became empty.”

Moreover, according to a teacher at the school, after the passage of the National Anthem Law in June 2020, a colleague of hers, worried about being reported, suddenly stood up in the staff room upon hearing the national anthem on a non-ceremony occasion, looking fearful and strange.

The incident shocked the teacher.

“Such a situation would not have happened even in mainland China,” she said.