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The previous chapter provided the background, purpose, rationale, and scope of the book. In this chapter we provide a comprehensive review of the literature with a focus on ethnic minority young people, and the ‘in school’ and the ‘out of school’ issues. We cover a broad range of literature that provides several contexts depicting the influences on ethnic minority students in Hong Kong which is the main focus of this book. There are five main sections in this chapter. Section 2.1 provides a general overview of international literature that examines the issues of ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, immigration, and their interrelations with educational outcomes. The review raises theoretical concerns that this book in turn seeks to answer in the process of researching those issues in a society where ethnic diversity is different from traditional multicultural societies. Section 2.2 reviews census data that describe the demographic characteristics of ethnic minority people in Hong Kong and social issues related to those characteristics. Section 2.3 examines selected literature and outlines the social context that characterizes the ethnic minority population in Hong Kong. Section 2.4 highlights the educational issues and challenges that ethnic minority students face within the school system. Finally, Sect. 2.5 identifies the research gaps in the literature and returns to the three research questions posed in the introduction.

2.1 Ethnic Diversity, Multiculturalism, Immigration and Educational Outcomes: Some Theoretical Concerns

Globalization and international migration characterize the multicultural nature of many societies in different parts of the world. North America, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand have been at the forefront of these processes throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. According to the United Nations, in 2005, around 191 million people lived outside their country of birth, which has doubled since 1975 and has continued to rise (UN Popul. Div. 2006 cited in Bloemraad et al. 2008). OECD reported that at the dawn of the twenty-first century, about one out of four or five residents in countries, such as Australia (24 %), Switzerland (24 %), New Zealand (19 %), and Canada (18 %), and one out of eight in Germany (13 %), the United States (13 %), and Sweden (12 %) are foreign-born (OECD 2007 cited in Bloemraad et al. 2008).

Once migratory processes could have been explained through either ‘the settler model’ or ‘temporary migration model.’ The contexts for migration, however, have changed enormously under globalization conditions because of the outstanding advancement in communication technology and transportation that allows multidirectional flows of people, ideas, and culture (Castles 2002). The rapid growth of transnational communities is an obvious consequence that has an important implication for the nation state and its members – the way it wants to form its community, the place of migrants in its community formation process, the extent of rights accorded to the migrants and the challenges migration poses to maintain traditionally closed-off nation states with homogenous national communities. International migration is a growing and changing context, and the challenge is in understanding the dynamics of migratory process as it plays out in transnational communities (Castles 2002).

Multiculturalism can be seen as a political tool (although much challenged) adapted to respond to ethnic diversity in traditional migrant societies. Yet the meaning of multiculturalism varies by context and writer. Bloemraad et al. (2008, p. 159) commented:

the term can be used as a demographic description of a society (e.g., the United States is a more multicultural society than Japan); it can refer to an ideology on the part of individuals or government that ethnic, racial, cultural, and religious diversity should be celebrated; it can refer to particular policies or programs undertaken by governments or institutions (e.g., multicultural curricula); or it can refer to a specific normative political theory that lays out principles for governing diverse societies.

While describing the western models of multiculturalism, Kymlica (2005) provided four trends and five conditions that characterized the responses to ethnic diversity in those societies. These trends are minority nationalism, a regionally concentrated group that conceives of itself as a nation within a larger state; the indigenous people; immigrants, which are groups formed by the decision of individuals and families to leave their original homeland and to emigrate to another society under an immigration policy that gives them the right to become citizens after a relatively short period of time; and the metics, who are also migrants but are not admitted as permanent residents or citizens. The five conditions are demographics, right-consciousness, democracy, desecuritization, and liberal democratic consensus. Kymlica (2005, p. 36) argued that when these five conditions are in place, the trend towards greater accommodation of ethno-cultural diversity is likely to occur. Nonetheless, Kymlica’s (2005) work is based on Western political ideas, such as liberalism. His work in relation to Asia has shown (He and Kymlica 2005) that this principle is not operative, and multiculturalism takes different forms. This observation is a key issue for the study of ethnic minorities in Asian contexts.

The importance of context cannot be overestimated. For example, in settler societies, such as Australia, the United States, and throughout Western Europe, a strong research tradition involving migrant and ethnic issues exists. Ethnic minority students have been the focus of research over the past four to five decades (e.g. Arora 2005; Atzaba-Poria et al. 2004; Caballero et al. 2007; Codjoe 2001; Cummins 1989; Dentler and Hafner 1997; Fuligni 1998; Haque 2000; He et al. 2008; Mansouri and Trembath 2005; Rassool 1999; Ruiz-de-Velasco et al. 2000; Rutter 1994). This literature is grounded in liberal democratic theory that embraces multiculturalism as a democratic process that values diversity, promotes equality and seeks equal opportunities for all citizens (Kennedy and Hue 2011). Kymlica (2005) described this condition as ‘liberal multiculturalism.’ Nevertheless, the question remains to be asked how ethnic diversity is conceptualized in a non-liberal democratic jurisdiction such as Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China. In trying to address this question we can look towards the work of Kymlica and He (2005) who investigated multiculturalism in a range of Asian societies, including China, and found that Asian societies have their own local traditions and policy responses to the issues of ethnic minorities. McCarthy (2009) coined multiculturalism in China as ‘communist multiculturalism,’ and argued that this concept is mainly for maintaining national harmony rather than any promotion, valuing, or celebrating of ethnic diversity. It is our contention that, the responses to ethnic diversity vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and conceptualizing them by using any single theoretical lens is problematic (Kennedy and Hue 2011, p. 344). Furthermore, while most multicultural countries are traditionally recipients of a major influx of immigrants, and it is by these means that they become multicultural society in nature, the scenario in Hong Kong is somewhat different.

The proportion of Hong Kong’s population that is non-Chinese ethnic population has been estimated to be just 6.4 % (Census and Statistics Department 2012) with many temporary workers, such as foreign domestic helpers making up this number, as well as ethnic minorities who were born in Hong Kong. In addition, there are ethnic minority people who are new arrivals. In one sense, this diversity in Hong Kong can be explained through ‘ immigrant’ and ‘metic’ trends of diversity in liberal democratic societies (Kymlica 2005). Yet sharp differences prevail. For example, some of the ethnic minority population in Hong Kong are mainly the legacy of British colonialism that brought both voluntary and involuntary colonized migrants from other colonies for empire maintenance and expansion (Law and Lee 2012). A large number of foreign domestic helpers are continuously denied the right to obtain permanent residences even after living in the territory for more than 7 years, which is otherwise a criterion of permanent settlement for other regular migrants and expatriates. Moreover, these workers are not allowed to bring any of their family members in Hong Kong. This situation is similar to the once guest worker schemes of Western European countries with the main difference being that eventually guest workers were attributed full citizenship rights later (Kymlica 2005). Another group is refugees who face extreme difficulties living in Hong Kong, because the territory has not yet signed onto the United Nations 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. According to Novianti (2007), the HKSAR does not take any responsibility or obligation towards asylum seekers or refugees except to adhere to the non-refoulement principle. They are not allowed to work and only approximately 20 % of all asylum seekers receive limited assistance in kind. Many asylum seekers and refugees, therefore, struggle hard in meeting their daily basic needs. This situation represents another difference in Hong Kong as in recent years several Western democracies adopted amnesty programs for illegal immigrants, and granted citizenship to long-settled refugees, guest workers, and children (Kymlica 2005). Considering all these divergences, a key issue is to position ethnic minority issues in Hong Kong in a theoretical framework that lies outside the scope of liberal multiculturalism but that nevertheless recognizes the diversity within Hong Kong society.

Several meta-analyses, re-analysis of previous research, large scale research combining qualitative and quantitative methods provide sophisticated models and findings on ethnic minorities and their education. In addition, cross-national comparative studies of educational experiences and outcomes for minority groups have been undertaken (Crul and Vermeulen 2003; Programme for International Student Assessment 2004, 2006; Thomson and Crul 2007). The latter provided a comparison of the same language and ethnic groups across national boundaries. One of the common findings across traditional multicultural jurisdictions is that students from particular ethnic and language minority groups often have unsatisfactory educational experiences and outcomes that continue up to the second and subsequent generations (Tsung et al. 2010). A pattern has been observed that characterizes a shift from ‘deficit’ theories in the 1960s to models highlighting home and school ‘discontinuities’, and issues of social and cultural capital to a focus on the ways in which institutional and government policies are played out in school contexts (Portes and Rumbaut 2001 cited in Tsung et al. 2010). These patterns are all grounded in multicultural educational policies that are based on liberal multiculturalism. Since Hong Kong is not a liberal democracy, the problem that remains is the positioning of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and its multicultural population.

In face of the multicultural mix of Hong Kong’s population it is surprising as Kennedy (Kennedy 2011b) argues that the education policy in Hong Kong remains monocultural despite this diversity. He further argues that social justice itself is conceptualized differently in Chinese society such that the idea of ‘fairness’ is different. Any kind of affirmative action seems contrary to Chinese notions of social justice in the sense that all citizens must be treated equally to exhibit ‘fairness’ in any society. Thus diversity attracts a different response in Hong Kong’s Chinese society, which is a major issue that will be dealt in this book. The implications of this position can be better understood in the context of research from other jurisdictions; this will be reviewed below.

Koopmans et al. (2012) investigated the citizenship rights for immigrants in ten European countries within the period of 1980–2008, and found that rights tended to become more inclusive until 2002, and after which they stagnated. The main driving force was the growth of an immigrant electorate. Yet counter-mobilization by right wing parties slowed or reversed the trend. Bauböck (2011) classified migrants into five different types of temporary migrant categories based on the degree of freedom of movement and the extent of the equality that migrants enjoyed compared to citizens and permanent residents. He argued that all these temporary migrants are actually ‘partial citizens’ who enjoy different degrees of freedom of movement with regard to the right to enter or the right of stay, and different degrees of social and political rights.

In the context of Western Europe, Barbulescu’s (2013) recent work on immigrant integration in Italy and Spain has found a negative correlation between immigrants’ social class in the host society and their rights and integration requirements: the lower the socio-economic position of the immigrant group, the fewer its rights, and the more demanding the integration requirements. Thus, class seems to interact with ethnicity and migrant status in the European context, and in turn, can lead to denial of rights either explicitly or implicitly.

The way governments treat ethnic minorities becomes part of human rights discourse because it seems that a full range of rights is not always available. Governments may not always see the issues in these terms because of their perceived sovereignty claims, but there are few reasons why some citizens are entitled to rights while others are not. Nevertheless, the rights of ethnic minorities are the key issues of consideration in any research irrespective of location. These issues remain unexplored especially outside the liberal context. Chwaszcza (2008, p. 119) commented while considering transnational justice, “we lack a clear understanding of what the rights and duties of individuals are (or ought to be) outside the socio-political background institution of the liberal paradigm of the (national) legal state”.

The above discussion raises theoretical concerns in relation to the wider international literature on developing transnational communities and the rights or otherwise of ethnic minorities within those communities. This background underscores the focus of this book, which is, the experience of ‘out of school’ ethnic minority young people in Hong Kong. The rest of the chapter deals mainly with literature specific to ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

2.2 The Ethnic Minority Population in Hong Kong

The general discourse encouraged by the HKSAR government on ‘ethnic minorities’ refers to them as to ‘people from non-Chinese ethnicities’ (Census and Statistics Department 2002, 2007, 2012, p. 2) [hereafter 2011 census referred to as The Census]. According to the 2011 Census (2012, p. 18), about 6.4 % (exact figure is 451183) of the total population of HKSAR are ethnic minorities from a range of ethnic groups including – Indonesians, Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis, Nepalese, White, Japanese, Thais, Pakistanis, Koreans etc. The 2006 by-census reported that about 5 % (exact figure is 342198) of the total population of HKSAR were ethnic minorities which means an increase in the total number of ethnic minority population by 31.8 % over 5 years.

Although Whites, Koreans and Japanese have been classified as ethnic minorities by the census reports in terms of their non-Chinese ethnic status they mostly belong to a higher socio-economic group than other ethnic minority groups (Census and Statistics Department 2007, p. 75, 2012, p. 86; Heung 2006). Filipinos and Indonesians usually have a temporary status as foreign domestic helpers (Bell and Piper 2005). Yet, the presence of 7.0 % young Filipinos (6.6 % in 2011, 7.6 % in 2006) under the age-group below 15 cannot be fully explained by their temporary status. Those left are mainly South Asians including Indian, Pakistani, and Nepalese. In 2011, South Asians collectively represented 14 % of the total ethnic minority population increasing by about 20,000 compared to the 2006 by-census (Census and Statistics Department 2012, p. 18).

The newly elected Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) delivered his first Policy Address in January 2013. Among other things he highlighted the needs of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong and committed further support:

Many ethnic minorities in Hong Kong were born and brought up here. Some of them are less successful in integrating into the community because they are unable to read and write Chinese. To provide an opportunity for ethnic minority students to learn Chinese more effectively, we will enhance support measures in schools. We hope that it will help nurture a new generation of people who call Hong Kong their home regardless of origin, race and religion. ( Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 2013, p. 45)

Why the Chief Executive focused on ethnic minorities who were born in Hong Kong and yet does not refer to the increasing number of new arrivals is unclear. The importance of the differentiation is that educational issues at the micro level will likely be diverse for these two groups of students. Despite the growing literature at the macro level, very little evidence is available that examines the magnitude of the educational issues facing ethnic minority students at different micro levels, those born here and those who come to join their parents. The complexities may not be as simple as depicted in the Policy Address since all ethnic minority students attending schools are not necessarily Hong Kong born. The 2011 Census (2012, p. 39) reported 13.3 % of the total ethnic minority population were born in Hong Kong, which is higher than the 11.1 % of Hong Kong born ethnic minority population reported in 2006 by-census (2007, p. 34) and the 10.3 % in the 2001 census (p. 31). Hence, 20.2 % (22,024 in number) of the increased ethnic minority population were born in Hong Kong between 2006 and 2011, and the rest (86,961 in number) of the increased ethnic minority population after 2006 were probably new arrivals.

Table 2.1 shows that 16.6 % (7,352) of ethnic minority population below the age of 15 resided in Hong Kong for less than 1 year, and another 28.2 % (12,515) resided for about 1–4 years. This figure may potentially mean that about 45 % of the young people under 15 years of age, who are in the school attending age-group, were new arrivals from 2006. In addition, 22.9 % (7,955) and 31 % (10,788) of the age-group 15–24 resided in Hong Kong for less than 1 year and between 1 and 4 years, respectively.

Table 2.1 Ethnic minorities by duration of residence in Hong Kong and age, 2011
Full size table

Since there is no further breakdown of age specific information for the below 15 group, and no new arrival information is in the public domain, thus, the precise number of new arrivals is more difficult to determine compared to those born in Hong Kong. It is also difficult to determine the places from which they come or their specific ages. It could be conjectured that some ethnic minorities born in Hong Kong are included in the number of those residing for less than a year. Nevertheless, there is a strong possibility that Hong Kong will continue to see significant numbers of new school age arrivals, even though it is not possible to be more specific at this point. Clearly, the literature (e.g., Ku et al. 2005; Loper 2004) and our fieldwork indicated that many ethnic minority young people came to Hong Kong either in late primary or early secondary school ages to reunite with their family.

Another noteworthy statistic from the most recent census (2012, p. 49) is that only 42.4 % of the total ethnic minority population resided in Hong Kong for about 7 or more years, which indicates they are likely to have permanent residence status. At the same time, this finding means that over 50 % of the ethnic minority population does not have any permanent resident status in Hong Kong. Thus, ethnic minority children eligible for entry to Hong Kong’s education system have a different status in relation to residency, especially citizenship. The question then is what is their status?

If they are considered to be temporary ‘ migrants,’ then this raises two challenges for a host country from the discourse of nationality, citizenship, and politics; first, there is the question of whether territorial democracies can integrate temporary migrants as equal citizens; and second, the question of whether transnationally-mobile societies can be organized democratically as communities of equal citizens (Bauböck 2011). Significantly, the word ‘ migrants’ is not used in HKSAR to describe the status of ethnic minority people. Rather, this word refers to the people from Mainland China who move to Hong Kong via the One Way Permit system. In addition, the complexity around Chinese nationality law in creating racial barriers is well documented, as White (1987, p. 502) asserted “in respect of Chinese Nationality Law, it is evident that it is not well equipped to cope with the inclusion of those not of Chinese origin; indeed, it creates an effectively racial barrier”. Therefore, the obvious questions are, is the ‘right of abode,’ ‘permanent residence,’ or ‘Hong Kong identity card holder’ enough for ethnic minority children in Hong Kong to have equal opportunities and rights to education? Can schools cater for them in an equitable way? A Hong Kong permanent resident enjoys the ‘ right of abode’ in Hong Kong, which means he (sic) has the right (a) to land in Hong Kong, (b) not to have imposed upon him (sic) any condition of stay in Hong Kong, and any condition of stay that is imposed shall have no effect, (c) not to have a deportation order made against him (sic), and (d) not to have a removal order made against him (sic) (Hong Kong SAR 1997, p. 5). A ‘ permanent identity card’ is an identity card that contains a statement that the holder has the ‘ right of abode’ in Hong Kong (Hong Kong SAR 2003, p. 2). An ‘identity card’ is issued under the Registration of Persons Ordinance, and every person of or over the age of 11 years who is permitted to stay in Hong Kong for more than 180 days is required to register for an identity card within 30 days of arrival or upon acquiring such permission to stay (Hong Kong SAR 2003, p. 1). This frame of reference and level of complexity around Chinese nationality leads into the next section, which looks at different challenges ethnic minority people are facing in Hong Kong. Bauböck’s (2011) work provides a theoretical frame for this discussion.

In summary, the ethnic minority population in Hong Kong is increasing but those born in Hong Kong appear to be in the minority, whereas the majority of ethnic minorities have been living in Hong Kong for less than 7 years. Significantly, there appears to be a number of ethnic minority young people who are new arrivals although their specific needs were not recognized in Chief Executive’s Policy Address ( Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 2013, p. 45), which highlighted only the needs of the Hong Kong born ethnic minority students.

2.3 Multicultural Hong Kong

In the previous section we discussed the distinctive multicultural nature of Hong Kong in quantitative terms. Greater awareness of the lives of ethnic minority population and their struggles in a multicultural Hong Kong society is important. Drawing on an ethnographic approach, Ku et al. (2010) conducted a year-long field study from October 2006 to October 2007 to understand the lives of the South Asian communities in Hong Kong. This research built on their previous work (Ku et al. 2003, 2005, 2006), where they employed a participatory research approach spending a good amount of time with participants in their homes, work places, parks, and playgrounds by interviewing and observing them. Ku et al. (2010) published eight stories that portrayed very vividly the life of South Asians in Hong Kong ranging from the first generation of Nepalese in Hong Kong to new immigrants from Nepal, from a Pakistani successful businessman to disadvantaged Pakistani women, the role of an Islamic centre, and the power of a Nepalese Shop in the building of strong social networks.

In summary, all eight stories illustrated a broader picture of the lives of South Asians in Hong Kong. These stories showed how the migration process and immigration policy affected the life of South Asian people in Hong Kong, the difficulties and challenges these people faced in navigating social security services in their vulnerable conditions, and the discrimination they encountered in their daily lives including employment. The health services provided in the hospital were not user friendly and not culturally sensitive. Facilities for observing religious activities were less than sufficient. The education provision for ethnic minority children did not provide for success in Hong Kong schools. As a result, the South Asian parent groups had less confidence in the education system. Ku et al. (2010, pp. 4–5, 213) commented:

These stories portray South Asians’ experiences of racial discrimination in almost all arenas of life: employment (hiring, firing, and advancement), admission to facilities, purchasing of goods and services, access to government services, and acquiring a home. They also reveal the family and marital problems in their community. However, these stories also demonstrate that South Asians are not passive victims of an exclusive society. We were impressed by their strength, value system, family relationships, kinship ties, strong sense of ethnic identity and work ethic………….Ethnic groups are often portrayed as lazy, welfare-dependent, avaricious, greedy, uncivilized, superstitious and backward-looking in order to rationalize their disadvantaged position in society. However, our research found that these stereotypes are misconceptions. Most of our interviewees were extremely hard working, both in the labor force and in their family life. In fact, many have shown great creativity in making full use of their skills and specialties to survive in a harsh environment. Of course, it is extremely difficult to meet these challenges, and our interviewees were not successful all the time. Some did face difficulties, but these were not due to their individual inadequacies or ‘problematic’ cultural background as generally believed. Their difficulties arose mostly because of the exclusionary social system and institutions that neglect the needs and problems of ethnic groups.

While Ku et al.’s (2010) research depicted multicultural Hong Kong, other literature discussed below reported the contexts in which ethnic minority people were living their lives in Hong Kong, how they were facing different challenges in their everyday life, and also developing their identity and its transformation.

Lee and Li (2011) in their study to identify the challenges encountered by young ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, found that the ethnic minority young people were full of annoyance and frustration about living in Hong Kong, claiming the society could not address their educational needs and career development. They also found that the ethnic minority young people faced internal struggles between two sets of values in their upbringing in Hong Kong: one being their home culture and the other the local Hong Kong culture. The authors argued that although many ethnic minorities possessed Hong Kong identity cards, and therefore were local residents in principle, they were still treated differently on certain issues.

O’Connor (2011) employed the concept of ‘everyday hybridity’ in exploring the multicultural nature of Hong Kong by engaging with Muslim youths. He looked at the hybridity of their lives across three themes, namely, identity, urban space, and fasting during Ramadan. In terms of identity, the study found that the participants managed their hybridity by attempting to control how others saw and perceived them. The space issue revealed that young Pakistani people were marginalized by not having provision for a public space to play one of their culturally preferred sports. Ramadan revealed their closer engagement with the religion by observing month-long fasting despite several challenges prevailing in Hong Kong’s non-Muslim society. Finally, O’Connor (2011) challenged the ideas of Muslim as a problematic component perceived in many multicultural societies.

Lock and Detaramani (2006) observed how two Indian communities, namely, the Sikh and Sindhi, in Hong Kong talked about their identity and its interrelationship with culture and language. They found that participants showed a range of different cultural models of ethnicity, culture, and language while describing their identity, sometimes the same person identified herself with different models of ethnicity. Lock and Detaramani (2006) argued that while Sikh participants identified themselves within the essentialist model of ethnicity, Sindhi participants were more inclined to the flexible relationships among ethnicity, culture, and language.

Tam (2010) examined the three generations of Nepalese women in Hong Kong to gain understandings about their situations by looking at the interface of gender and ethnic minority identity. While Nepalese women have been assigned a passive mother-wife role, the author argued that they are important building blocks to maintain a transnational network, and are agents of change in the present day. By further examining the changes in relation to the RDO and by looking at how their social marginalization dealt at the government, family and personal level, the study (Tam 2010) called for an in-depth and gender-aware understanding of the lived experiences of ethnic minorities to formulate an efficient multicultural policy.

Plüss (2006) looked at the ethnic identity transformations of Muslims of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, and mixed ethnic origins in Hong Kong. The process of their identity transformations refuted the general assumption that the differences and contradictions between the characteristics of ethnic identities and majority residents motivated the transformation of migrants’ identity resulting in the reduction of differences between the two groups. Rather, Plüss (2006) found that adopting characteristics from the non-Muslim Chinese culture helped in establishing multi-ethnic Islamic practices, which ultimately highlighted their differences from the non-Muslim Chinese majorities.

In summary, the above literature highlighted how the living context of ethnic minority people in multicultural Hong Kong is in fact very challenging. Ethnic minorities face enormous difficulties in their daily lives. It also highlights the complexity of ethnic minority people’s identity construction process and its transformation.

2.4 Educational Provision for Ethnic Minority Students in Hong Kong: Issues and Challenges

This section provides a detailed literature review of education provision for ethnic minority students, the issues, and challenges that they are facing in education, support measures undertaken by the government and their effectiveness and the promises of other support measures. Although there are many common issues reported in different literature, the methods adopted by the researchers are different. Therefore, in this section, we initially describe the issues and challenges in respect to some individual research or concerned groups’ report by focusing on their methods and major findings. We then provide a critical review highlighting major issues and challenges.

2.4.1 Education for Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong

Loper (2004) was one of the earliest proponents of education for ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Her work focused on understanding the issues and challenges experienced by the ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools, and examined the educational policies and practices for ethnic minorities in respect to local and international human rights and equal opportunities laws. She conducted 14 interviews with 10 students, and 6 parents or relatives of other 12 students. She also interviewed social workers, school leaders, and government officials responsible for ethnic minority education.

Five issues were identified in the study concerning ethnic minority education in Hong Kong – lack of school places for ethnic minority students; shortage of Chinese language teaching-learning opportunities; lower quality of available educational institutions for ethnic minority students; less access to the information of educational system especially school placement; and little or no interaction between Chinese and ethnic minority students. Many participants encountered serious difficulties in finding a school, and some waited for a longer time for school place allocation. Some of them found schools, but these places were not within close proximity from their houses. Chinese language teaching-learning was not offered in many schools, and even if some was offered, the content was very limited. Students believed that the lack of Chinese language learning opportunities limited their choices of primary and secondary schools and hindered their access to tertiary level education and jobs. Some participants were not happy with the quality of services they received from the schools. Many participants were having difficulties in receiving information about the education systems of Hong Kong, especially school placement information. This problem was mainly due to the lack of resources available in English. Some participants had few Chinese friends and had less opportunity to get along with Chinese students. The stories of the participants interviewed in the study portrayed the above issues vividly.

Finally, Loper’s review of educational policies and practices for ethnic minority students based on local and international human rights and equal opportunities laws suggested the prevalence of direct and indirect discrimination. This situation required innovative thinking on the part of Hong Kong policy makers to come up with alternatives to discriminatory treatments, while formulating a new law on equal opportunities or racial discrimination.

2.4.2 Education of South Asian Ethnic Minority Groups in Hong Kong

While Loper’s study reported educational issues and challenges for ethnic minority students as a whole, the majority of the participants were of South Asian origin. More precisely, Ku et al. (2005) captured similar issues and challenges specifically for South Asian ethnic minority students. They conducted a study to explore every day practices in school life, including relationships between teachers and students, parents and students, students themselves, and learning environments. The study employed a questionnaire survey with 200 students, and conducted in-depth interviews with 20 students. All students were between Form Four and Seven and included Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis, and Nepalese.

The study reported more than half of the ethnic minority students concerned had fewer educational opportunities compared with Chinese students, mainly because they had fewer school choices. Moreover, they had limited educational opportunities in the post-secondary level. A quarter of the ethnic minority students agreed that their teachers did not equally treat students from different ethnicities. They also reported that teachers gave more attention to the Chinese students than ethnic minority students, and the latter experienced more severe punishment. Moreover, teachers held stereotypes of ethnic minority students, such that ‘useless,’ ‘misbehaving,’ and ‘impolite’ were prevalent. The study pointed out that about half of the ethnic minority students rarely communicated with their Chinese schoolmates. In addition, one-fifth of the ethnic minority students reported that Chinese students disliked them. They attributed this feeling to the lack of language ability and cultural differences that created barriers in communicating with Chinese students.

The study found that most of the ethnic minority students did not have the opportunity to interact with school social workers. Ethnic minority students reported that the learning environment of schools, such as a noisy classroom atmosphere, was not conducive for learning. Moreover, drug abuse and bullying were prevalent in schools. The study found that newly arrived ethnic minority students faced greater difficulties in adjusting to the local school curriculum because it was so different compared with the curriculum of their home countries.

Regarding cultural and religious values, more than half of the ethnic minority students reported that their schools respected those values, such as wearing scarves, growing beards, and so on. However, some students stated they were denied a place to pray in the schools, and school canteens hardly served foods they were allowed to eat. The study found that majority of ethnic minority students had high aspirations for future working career upon completion of their education. They were, however, concerned with their lack of ability in Chinese language, especially in reading and writing. Further, a majority of ethnic minority students realized the importance of learning Chinese language in Hong Kong, especially for further education and future job opportunities, and therefore expressed interest in learning Chinese in school. About half of the ethnic minority students wished to learn their mother tongue in school.

With regard to the ‘sense of belongingness’, the study found that majority of ethnic minority students considered themselves both a person of their ethnic origin and of Hong Kong. Ethnic minority students were found to be ambivalent in terms of their attitudes towards local Chinese people, because many of them actually experienced racial discrimination in their life in Hong Kong. Less than 50 % of the ethnic minority students reported they had close Chinese friends. The majority of ethnic minority students had strong pride in their ethnic origin and many of them claimed that they had special qualities that local Chinese students do not possess.

2.4.3 Equal Opportunities Commission’s ‘Education for All’ Report

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is a statutory body in Hong Kong established in 1996 to protect people from discrimination based on sex, disability, race, and family status through monitoring legislation, related sex, disability, race, and family status. The ethnic minority community and its NGO supporters were quite vocal concerning the barriers to their children’s education in Hong Kong, as indicated in the previous sections. This led to the EOC’s setting up of a Working Group in 2010 that set out to review the challenges and issues related to the education of ethnic minority students. The 2011 EOC report entitled Education for All drew on three sharing sessions, with 12 teachers and principals of different schools who traditionally admitted a good number of ethnic minority students; with 11 NGO professionals working for the welfare of ethnic minority communities; and with 19 ethnic minority parents and students from seven different ethnicities (EOC 2011). The report indicated that the participation of ethnic minority students was disproportionately low in upper secondary and post-secondary level compared to the majority Chinese students. The study warned the issue called for serious attention, and the reasons behind such need should be explored. The report provided ‘major concerns and views’ of different stakeholders in accordance to the respective sharing session.

Educators reported various concerns, such as challenges in learning Chinese due to the lack of family support and limited school resources including funding, additional teachers, lack of teachers’ skills in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. There was a lack of assessment tools for identifying ethnic minority children with special education needs. Moreover, many ethnic minority students were not attending kindergarten, and the school allocation system could not guarantee all ethnic minority students could be offered a place in English medium secondary schools. Ethnic minority students faced greater difficulties when studying in Chinese medium secondary schools. The public examination system, especially the requirement for proficiency in Chinese, has prevented ethnic minority students from getting into universities. Although an alternative Chinese language examination was in place, this has not provided the needed access as many ethnic minority students dropped out before secondary completion. In addition, Chinese parents were not amenable to the idea that their children should have to study with ethnic minority students in the same school.

NGOs also expressed concerns. They regarded the view that ethnic minority parents’ lack of aspiration for their children’s education as a stereotype. Rather NGOs argued that these parents needed more information and support. They also viewed that education and language support should also be provided from the kindergarten level. In addition, NGOs felt teacher education lacked quality and needed to be enhanced by incorporating racial and cultural awareness. NGOs also stated that although universities are required to accept alternative Chinese language qualification as per admission policy, however, the actual practice is different. Thy also demanded for public education to promote racial harmony. Moreover, NGOs criticised that the government was found to be reluctant in publishing statistics in relation to education, employment, and social services ethnicity-wise. Furthermore, they stressed that the designated schoolFootnote 1 system reinforces segregation.

Ethnic minority parents and students identified concerns, such as the lack of Chinese language skill, which resulted in lower achievement in their Chinese language subject, and hampered their performance on other subjects. Consequently, poor performance in language resulted in low overall achievement in Chinese medium schools. The huge gap between local and GCSE Chinese curriculum, therefore, needs an alternative Chinese language curriculum aimed at reducing this gap. This requires starting an immersion programme from the kindergarten level and providing early support for ethnic minority students with special education needs. Designated schools need to provide supportive learning environment as designated schools were seen to hinder integration.

Following these views and suggestions, EOC submitted their concerns in writing to the Education Bureau (EDB). Finally, the report provided a list of recommendations for improving the provision of education for ethnic minority students based on all three sharing sessions and the meeting with EDB. These were – providing support to help children in learning Chinese language starting from the pre-primary level; learning lessons from other countries who have traditionally large immigrant groups; intensive language training for new immigrants; providing school based immersion classes; strengthening quality assurance and central system on the part of EDB; EDB to provide expert support to schools in developing Chinese language curriculum and teaching materials; EDB to facilitate experience sharing among schools; adapting assessment tools for early identification of the ethnic minority children with special education needs; incorporating contents on racial and cultural awareness in special education teacher training; consideration for developing a Chinese proficiency programme and testing system; using 2011 census data for systematically capturing educational statistics for ethnic minority students; tracking ethnic minority students’ academic and social development through longitudinal study; EDB to set up a one stop service for ethnic minority students to provide educational and career counseling; promoting public education on racial harmony and respect for diversity; EDB to examine their existing policies and practices in respect to anti-discrimination legislation and realize the policy of providing quality education for all school age children.

2.4.4 United Nation’s Concerns About the Educational Provision for Ethnic Minority Students in Hong Kong

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (2013) at United Nations considered the combined third and fourth periodic reports of China (including Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions), during its 1833rd, 1834th, and 1835th meetings. They expressed concerns about ethnic minority education issue in Hong Kong, and that they adopted their concluding observations at their 1845th meeting. They noted:

In Hong Kong SAR, the Committee is concerned about:

(b) The de facto discrimination of ethnic minority children and racial segregation in the public school system, due to availability of teaching only in Chinese and the system of so-called government-subsidized “designated schools” for these children; (Committee on the Rights of the Child 2013, section 76 (b), p. 18)

The committee also provided three recommendations to address these issues-

The Committee recommends that Hong Kong SAR:

  1. (b)

    Urgently abolish the system of so-called “ designated schools” for children of ethnic minorities and reallocate resources to promote their access to education into mainstream schools, including through scholarships or lower entry qualifications;

  2. (c)

    Intensify its efforts to implement legislation and policies on bilingual education at all levels of education, ensuring high quality education in Chinese as a second language and

  3. (d)

    Ensure access to local schools for all children living in Hong Kong SAR. (Committee on the Rights of the Child 2013, section 78 (b), (c), (d), p. 18)

2.4.5 Legal Implications of Education for Ethnic Minority Children in Hong Kong

Kapai (2011) in her submission to a meeting of the Hong Kong Legislative Council panel on education, examined the education provisions for ethnic minority children in Hong Kong in general and especially the Chinese language teaching-learning opportunities and support systems in schools in respect to Hong Kong’s international and domestic legal obligations. These instruments included the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Hong Kong Basic Law (HKBL), International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and Race Discrimination Ordinance (RDO). RDO is the latest legal tool that HKSAR enacted in 2009, which aimed to prevent ethnic minority population from any kind of racial discrimination. Kapai (2011) noted that the lack of adequate Chinese language learning provisions for ethnic minority students is the main reason for their continued marginalization in different key stages of life, such as restricted access to higher education and other training opportunities, and fewer employment opportunities available compared to majority Chinese people. In turn, this had implications for the ability of ethnic minority groups to participate fully in the wider Hong Kong society.

Kapai (2011) highlighted the key issues and ineffectiveness of different support measures for Chinese language learning, such as initiation programme, Chinese language curriculum, supplementary guide, summer bridging programme, recurrent grants to the school, alternative assessment of Chinese language, vocational training courses etc., and the legal implications of those issues and ineffectiveness. The study suggested that the support measures were inadequate and failed to provide equal educational opportunities, which resulted to various direct and indirect racial or ethnic and educational discriminations. She also argued that while the majority of ethnic minority students attended designated schools that this was not, as the government usually claimed the result of parental choice. It was actually a ‘false’ choice created by the system and it led to a de facto segregation. These practices indicated discriminatory and violations of sections 4(1) and 4(3) of RDO (Kapai 2011, p. 4).

2.4.6 South Asian Ethnic Minority Students’ Educational Experiences and Identity Construction

Gu and Patkin (2013) explored the educational experiences of South Asian ethnic minority students in a Hong Kong-designated English medium secondary school. Their study aimed to understand language attitudes, language practices, and identity construction. They employed two focus group discussions with a group of five female students and another group of five male students. The study further conducted six individual interviews with three participants from each group. The research participants were studying in Form Five and Form Six, and were mainly of Pakistani, Indian, and Nepalese ethnic origins. The study identified students’ ethnic and cultural backgrounds, lack of Chinese language skills, and Hong Kong people’s stereotypes of them as the obstacles for their socialization into mainstream Chinese society. In terms of heritage identity, the South Asian ethnic minority students negotiated and contested it by utilizing their South Asian heritage, and gained experiences and knowledge in the host Hong Kong context.

Hong Kong society was seen not to recognize South Asian’s heritage languages and cultures, or associated them with negative attributes. Ethnic minority students, however, continued to speak their heritage languages and maintained their heritage cultures. The authors argued that in utilizing their heritage, the ethnic minority students identified advantages, and thus, the students constructed a counter-discourse to resist the lower social status of their heritage languages and minority identity by (a) maintaining their heritage languages, (b) by promoting the dominant status of English, and (c) by devaluing the local language. Yet these steps also limited their linguistic choices and led to discrimination against other languages (Gu and Patkin 2013, p. 139). The authors further argued that ethnic minority parents imposed heritage languages and cultures on their children. Nevertheless, they lived and experienced their lives mainly in the host society, therefore, they were living in between by lacking a full sense of belongingness to either their heritage country or Hong Kong. Hence, they constructed a new negotiated in-between identity that reflected both their heritage and their experiences in the host context.

2.4.7 A Critical Review of the Issues and Challenges of Educational Provision for Ethnic Minority Students

While the previous sections reviewed different literature reporting several similar issues and challenges, this section provides a critical review of those challenges drawing on even wider literature. The following sub-sections describe the main issues and challenges centred on micro-views of the problem, admissions, Chinese language, assessment, curriculum, teaching, resource support, supervision and monitoring, overall policy towards multicultural education in Hong Kong, and the efficiency of overall support measures. Ethnic minority children are labelled as ‘ Non-Chinese Speaking (NCS)’ children by the Education Bureau in Hong Kong, although the EOC calls them ethnic minority children (EOC 2011). This NCS labelling, however, has been questioned and in particular whether it is right to recognize them only by their lack of skill in a particular language (Kennedy 2011a).

2.4.7.1 Micro-views of the Problem

As discussed earlier, the Chief Executive of HKSAR in his first Policy Address in January 2013, highlighted the needs of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong ( Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 2013, p. 45). While the Policy Address focused only on Chinese language difficulties for ethnic minority students, the address largely ignored other issues and challenges that have been raised in the growing literature. It seems from the Policy Address that the government is only concerned with the Hong Kong born ethnic minority children, but many ethnic minority students join schools in Hong Kong during the late primary years or in secondary school as a form of reunification with their parents who have been ordinarily living in Hong Kong for some time. Obviously, these students are in a more vulnerable position than Hong Kong born ethnic minority students in coping with Hong Kong schooling and society.

Although there is growing literature at the macro level less attention has been paid to the magnitude of educational issues facing ethnic minority students at different micro levels, for those born in Hong Kong as well as the new arrivals. The complexities are mostly unexplored and may not be as simple as highlighted in the Policy Address. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask the question of whether an exclusive focus on Chinese language education at the top government level obscures the bigger picture of ethnic minority education in Hong Kong?

2.4.7.2 Admissions

Although the parents of ethnic minority students are free to choose any type of school for their children’s enrolment at Primary One or Secondary One, there was a tendency for the number of schools receiving special support for ethnic minority students to increase. While the number of such schools was 15 in 2006–2007, it eventually reached 31 ( Education Bureau [EDB] 2012). The EDB had previously invited schools to be ‘ designated’ schools mainly to develop expertise among a pool of schools in dealing with ethnic minority students and sharing their experiences with other schools. It is possibly easier for the EDB to provide support and resources in this context. Yet this designated school concept has been highly criticized as a discriminatory approach itself mainly because it reinforces segregation rather than integration (EOC 2011, p. 7; Hong Kong Unison Limited 2011). Moreover, it has been argued that starting in a ‘designated’ primary school limits opportunities for the ethnic minority students to be admitted into a better mainstream secondary school in the later stage because of inadequate Chinese language proficiency (Hong Kong Unison Limited 2009; Novianti 2007). EOC (2011) asserted that this practice of mainstream schools refusing the admission of ethnic minority students because of their language deficiency is indirect discrimination and violation of Race Discrimination Ordinance (Home Affairs Bureau [HAB] 2008). The optimistic side, however, is that the EDB no longer refers to ‘designated schools’ on their website and has changed it to ‘schools provided with recurrent funding and school-based professional support for non Chinese speaking students’ (EDB 2012).

2.4.7.3 Chinese Language

Learning Chinese language has always been an important issue for ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools. In spite of repeated requests from all the concerned parties to introduce an alternative Chinese language curriculum for ethnic minority students or Chinese as a second language curriculum, the EDB has been always reluctant. Instead, EDB continuously emphasized that ‘The Supplementary Guide to the Chinese Language Curriculum for NCS Students,’ needs to be adopted by schools to meet the specific needs of the ethnic minority students. This approach has been criticized publicly since the Guide is only a framework and direction for teachers, has nothing to do with day to day teaching, and by adopting this approach, EDB has actually shifted their responsibility towards teachers (Hong Kong Unison Limited 2011). Nevertheless, the Chief Executive made a commitment in his latest policy address that from 2014 to 2015 academic year, the government will implement ‘Chinese language curriculum second language learning framework’ (“2014 Policy Address” 2014). In relation to this the commitment was also made to provide related learning and teaching materials, assessment tools as well as support for teachers through school-based professional support programme and in service professional development programme.

Ullah (2012), who was a victim of Chinese language education deprivation in a Hong Kong school, conducted PhD research that critically reviewed the Chinese language education provisions for non-Chinese speaking students (NCS). His study aimed to illustrate the problems encountered by the ethnic minority students while learning Chinese, especially after 2004 when Chinese language education was made available in Hong Kong schools. A literacy test was administered and a survey was conducted for the quantitative part of the study. The qualitative part included observations, documentary review, and in-depth interviews.

Although the NCS group was doing well in the international Chinese examination in sampled schools, such as GCSE from 2007 to 2010, the result of the literacy test administered in the study was not satisfactory and was far from societal expectations. In fact, the students had very poor performance. The author provided a number of reasons to explain the low performance. First, the students had a low self-rating for their proficiency of Chinese, especially in writing and speaking. The students rated themselves the most proficient in English, second in their home language and third in Chinese. Second, the Chinese language utilization pattern for ethnic minority students was very low in their daily life, which only accounted for 8 %, where the usage of English accounted for 68 %. Moreover, ethnic minority students usually did not use Chinese outside their lessons. The author coined this practice as ‘pigeonization syndrome.’ Third, most students were geared towards sitting for the GCSE Chinese examination in which they normally did well, and became satisfied; but the skills they achieved were below societal expectation. Therefore, ethnic minority students were given false hope about their Chinese literacy and did not feel the need for ‘unpigeonizing’ themselves beyond classroom lessons. Fourth, primary and secondary Chinese curriculum has poor linkage, and students are victimized because of frequent school-based curriculum evolution. Last, several unfavorable conditions are obstacles for effective learning of Chinese. Differences between their first language and Chinese cannot make cognitive transfer easy whilst targeting to acquire a higher level of Chinese. This cannot be aided by the practice of heavy reliance on English as the medium in Chinese language instruction. Moreover, the lack of authentic texts for enhancing their literacy level was noted.

Ullah (2012) identified several anomalies in the current implementation of school-based Chinese curriculum for ethnic minority students. First, there is a mismatch between different levels of curriculum planning in incorporating central Chinese curriculum framework (CCCF) in school-based Chinese curriculum. Second, teachers have inadequate language teaching competency and language teacher education competency to develop and implement a full school-based Chinese curriculum for second language speakers. Third, the contents and the role of the school curriculum guide (SCG) are inadequate and illusive. This guide only helped new designated schools in organizing their curriculum, and lacked important content such as teaching approaches or methodological perspectives to assist frontline teachers.

In yet another investigation into ethnic minority students’ education, a survey was carried out by Hong Kong Unison Limited (2012) on kindergarten education. It recommended specific actions for the sake of early integration of ethnic minority students into the Hong Kong society through the acquisition of Chinese from the beginning of kindergarten. There was, however, no research evidence as to whether this approach was right for them. Ethnic minority children have the challenge of learning two foreign languages (Chinese and English) in Hong Kong kindergartens from the ages of 3 to 5. Is the policy to teach them two foreign languages right, when their home language is completely different? How difficult is learning two foreign languages for kindergarten students? Is there any risk factor associated with this practice that can result in losing their motivation in education? What are the policies of other countries like UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and South Korea in this regard? These are just some of the important questions that need to be answered both theoretically and practically in order to formulate strong support measure for the ethnic minority kindergarten students in Hong Kong (Bhowmik 2012).

It is a positive development that the GCSE Chinese qualification for ethnic minority students (with some conditions) has now been recognized and facilitates their gaining access into higher education or the job market. Yet there is still concern that individual higher education institutions and government departments require higher proficiency in the use of Chinese language thus limiting the choices of ethnic minority students. Because of the achievement level gap between GCSE Chinese curriculum and Hong Kong Chinese curriculum, some have proposed to develop an alternative Chinese examination. This would benefit ethnic minority students in that it would enable them to reach a certain level of Chinese language proficiency and provide a recognized qualification for better access to higher education institutions and the job market (Hong Kong Unison Limited 2011; Ullah 2012). Another potential support measure was suggested in the EOC’s document (2011) that a Chinese Proficiency Programme and Testing System (CPPTS) can be developed so that it could be used as a benchmark for higher education institutes and workplace. Although this particular language issue has been argued for ages, no pragmatic solution has yet been seen.

2.4.7.4 Assessment

The EOC (2011, p. 8) report labelled as ‘unfair’ the need for ethnic minority students to reach the same level of Chinese proficiency as native speakers. The report also asserted that existing assessment tools for identifying children with special needs were developed mainly for Chinese students and did not consider cultural factors and language deficiencies of the ethnic minority students. This non-consideration resulted in ethnic minority students with special needs facing double challenges.

A General Research Fund project entitled ‘Exploring Cultural Diversity in Chinese Classrooms: Can Assessment Environments Cater for the Needs of Ethnic Minority Students in Hong Kong’, [GRF-HKIEd840809] was funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. Results of the project suggested the need for a different assessment environment for ethnic minority students with ‘more feedback’ and ‘praise for achievement’ that are valued by the students (Kennedy 2011a). The study also looked at the factors affecting ethnic minority students’ learning motivation. The results (Kennedy et al. 2015) indicated that there is agreement between Chinese and ethnic minority students that their main experience of assessment is the teacher dominated form. These forms of assessment experienced by students interact with student learning motivation that is characterized for both groups of students by a strong mastery orientation the main point of which is to develop academic competence. There is evidence of moderate support for social orientations to learning, somewhat stronger for ethnic minority students than Chinese students. For both groups of students, a performance orientation to learning that seeks high marks and pleasing others does not have strong support from either Chinese or ethnic minority students – in fact it is the least endorsed attitude to learning motivation by both groups of students.

2.4.7.5 Curriculum

The need for alternative or second language curriculum for Chinese language has been discussed in one of the previous sub-sections (2.4.7.3), and there we also referred to the recent commitment from the Chief Executive. In addition, a strong demand for development of teaching and learning materials focusing on Chinese language needs of ethnic minority students has been well argued ( EOC 2011; Hong Kong Unison 2010, 2011). Moreover, whether the existing curriculum is culturally responsive towards ethnic minority students has not been well-researched. Nevertheless, Hue’s (2011) work provided cross-curricular experiences of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools. Hue and Kennedy (2012) examined the teachers’ views of ethnic minority students’ cross-cultural experiences to understand teachers’ conceptualization of a new rationale for cultural responsiveness and management of diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools in relation to the creation of culturally responsive school and classrooms. The study revealed that the teachers struggled to conceptualize a new rationale for responding to cultural diversity (Hue and Kennedy 2012).

2.4.7.6 Teaching

It is imperative that Hong Kong teachers feel capable to teach ethnic minority students as well as Chinese students and that both groups can equally be engaged (Kennedy et al. 2008). However, Hue (2011) reported that teachers in Hong Kong struggle in several areas related to ethnic minority students’ education i.e. in fulfilling the diverse needs of students, developing partnerships with ethnic minority students’ parents, broadening educational and career aspirations of ethnic minority students. Moreover, Kennedy (2011a) emphasized that Hong Kong teachers need to rethink their approaches to learning by creating the kind of learning environments and modifying them in order to meet the specific needs of ethnic minority students.

2.4.7.7 Resource Support

EDB (2011a, b) reported that they are providing grants to schools to support ethnic minority students mainly in improving their Chinese language. However, while some schools were given grants to run school-based support measures for the ethnic minority students, other schools were given grants only for running after-school Chinese learning programmes (Hong Kong Unison Limited 2011). Moreover, it has been reported that sometimes fund disbursement of EDB differed from school to school without justifiable and clear reasons (pp. 10–11).

2.4.7.8 Supervision and Monitoring

Clearly, resources have been put in place to support ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools (EDB 2011a, b). Their appropriateness and adequacy, however, have been highly criticized by many interested parties. One of the reasons identified by EOC (2011) is the lack of quality assurance and central support from the EDB. Therefore, EOC (2011) has urged the EDB to establish a central quality assurance system so that the resources being deployed to schools can be effectively monitored.

2.4.7.9 Overall Policy Towards Multicultural Education in Hong Kong

It has been argued that the Confucian philosophy of social justice informing the educational policy in Hong Kong is at odds with the needs and expectation of the parents of the ethnic minority students as well as the views of some other stakeholders including community groups and researchers in this area (Kennedy 2011b). This has meant that existing Government policy is only moving towards mono-cultural education according to Skerrett and Hargreaves’s (2008) framework of educational orientations to diversity (Kennedy 2011b), while multicultural education has been highly recommended for a multicultural society (Banks 2008; Gay 2000; Ladson-Billings 1994, 2007; Nieto 2008; Pajares 2007). Yet it is not necessary to adopt the western notion of multiculturalism (Kennedy 2011a) as it has been well argued that Asia has its own distinctive type of traditions related to the diversity and the importance is given to developing local approaches to multiculturalism (Kymlica 1995, 2007; Kymlicka and He 2005). One such approach has been argued ‘social resilience’ instead of ‘ multiculturalism’ (Kennedy 2011a) following the suggestion made in the context of Singapore (Ramakrishna 2008).

2.4.7.10 The Efficiency of Overall Support Measures

Connelly et al. (2012) evaluated the HKSAR government’s educational support measures for ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools. The study specifically looked at identifying to what extent educational support measures for ethnic minority students, mainly in Chinese language, were fulfilling government objectives such as ‘alleviating the obstacles of language and cultural barriers’, ‘facilitating smoother integration’ into Hong Kong society, and ‘positively impacting the educational opportunities’ of ethnic minority students. They worked in four primary schools and two secondary schools. The study team used semi-structured interviews with the principals or representatives from each school, focus group discussions with the government officials and teachers, and conducted an online questionnaire survey with the teachers and students. A total of 31 teachers and 370 ethnic minority students participated in the evaluation.

The study found no hard evidence in relation to the effectiveness of support measures in Chinese language skill development of the ethnic minority students. Teachers, however, welcomed the support measures and called for more support in the areas of curriculum adaptations, resources and professional development. Whether support measures could remove cultural barriers between students and teachers could not be evaluated because all the support measures were centered on Chinese language alone. The authors argued that the designated school system created ‘separatist’ and ‘impoverished’ education, and streaming system within the designated school further separated ethnic minority students, which altogether made ‘cultural diversity invisible’ in Hong Kong schools. Therefore support measures could not facilitate any smoother integration of ethnic minority students into Hong Kong society. The study also found that support measures positively impacted educational opportunities of ethnic minority students in some schools, when those schools deployed resources differently such as hiring ethnic minority teaching assistants instead of spending funds for a Chinese language support programme. On the whole, however, support measures largely failed to impact positively in educational opportunities of ethnic minority students. As the authors argued, it could not help ethnic minority students reach the same Chinese level as Chinese students, and therefore limited the opportunities for them to access higher education and job markets. The authors claimed a unique finding of the study was that the barrier to ethnic minority students’ educational achievement is not ‘one dimensional’ focusing on Chinese language, rather it is ‘multidimensional’.

While Connelly et al. (2012) evaluation largely showed the inefficiency of the government’s existing support measures, some promising efforts supporting ethnic minority students have been identified in individual schools.

2.4.8 Some Other Promising Support Measures

While most empirical research on ethnic minority education in Hong Kong centered in the so called “designated” schools, Gao and Shum (2010) investigated the role of bilingual teaching assistants for the education of South Asian ethnic minority students in the mainstream school where the medium of instruction is pre-dominantly Chinese. The qualitative study interviewed two bilingual teaching assistants with Pakistani background from a mainstream secondary school. The mainstream secondary school only had 30 South Asian background students out of a total of 800 students. The teaching assistants were third generation Pakistani who were born and educated in Hong Kong. They were both Form Five graduates from the same secondary school where they were working as teaching assistants. Both of them were proficient in Chinese’. The study also interviewed four Chinese language subject teachers and another nine teachers of non-Chinese subjects such as Mathematics, Chinese History, Liberal Studies, and English with whom the two bilingual teaching assistants worked.

The study reported two major roles of bilingual teaching assistants in Hong Kong mainstream secondary school. First, they were helping South Asian ethnic minority students in Chinese language acquisition. Secondly, they were also playing an important role as cultural mediators between the mainstream school culture and the culture of South Asian ethnic minority community in Hong Kong. An account of a teaching assistant clearly indicated why their role of cultural mediator was very important in addition to helping students learn Chinese language (Gao and Shum 2010, p. 452).

Because of our face colour, our religion, and our culture, the local students will try to [dislike] us. They will try to [say] something bad to us, like ‘acha’. I have [been] in Hong Kong [for] a long time. Even in the kindergarten, the local parents will talk ‘Oh, ‘acha’ is here, ‘acha’ is studying in this kindergarten.’ There is too much, too much. In my secondary schooling, I cried every single day. They were all Hong Kongese. You know, it’s a big pressure. And even some of the teachers . . . they feel your culture is a trouble, your religion is a trouble and you don’t know Chinese. I need to make the youngsters feel confident and be understood by the mainstream.

Ho (2008) suggested teaching Islam as a multiethnic and multicultural literacy on the argument that Islamic education is portrayed as a concern related to terrorism by the Western media in the post 9/11 era and there has also been considerable scholarly works growing in this area. He was concerned that public education about Islam as a world religion had only received limited attention. He explored the curriculum and pedagogical challenges of teaching Islam in Western universities, and then showed the promises of alternative pedagogies for teaching about Islam in East Asian universities. Finally, he urged the development of an alternative pedagogy of teaching Islam that will ultimately help young people enhance critical thinking which they can use to avoid being influenced by the Western media as well as to remove their misunderstanding and to realize their own potentials in order to be a future peacemaker in multiethnic and multicultural societies.

Up to this point, we have discussed the literature that reported the issues and challenges encountered by the ethnic minority students inside the school. The amount of literature documented inside school issues is substantial. In the following section, we will discuss another important issue: that is, how the concept of ‘out of school’ has been largely overlooked in the literature.

2.5 ‘Out of School’ Issue for Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission first recognized the disproportionately low participation rates of ethnic minority children in the upper secondary and post-secondary education compared with the majority ethnic Chinese children (EOC 2011). Earlier in 2009, a Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) discussion paper raised concerns about the academic performance of ethnic minority students. Less than 50 % met the minimum requirements for the admission into Form Six in 2008–2009 with only 24 students sitting examinations in the final year, that is, Form Seven of senior secondary (Hong Kong Legislative Council 2009). LegCo recommended that the government should consider conducting research on the academic performance of ethnic minority students. Furthermore, earlier literature highlighted several issues and challenges faced by ethnic minority students regarding their education in Hong Kong, which to some extent, also shed light about the ‘out of school’ issue (Ku et al. 2005; Loper 2004).

Recently, Bhowmik (2013) suggested that a good number of ethnic minority children were ‘out of school,’ including the pre-primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary age-group young people. Kennedy (2012) also highlighted similar kinds of phenomena. Moreover, Bhowmik and Kennedy (2013) raised this ‘out of school’ phenomenon for ethnic minority children as a new issue about access and equity in Hong Kong’s education system that failed to meet the requirements of one of ‘no-loser principle’ of Hong Kong’s most recent education reform (Education Commission [EC] 2000).

Collectively this limited literature indicates that there exists a major educational access, participation and outcome issue that is related to the number of ‘out of school’ ethnic minority young people in Hong Kong. While this small literature sheds very little light on the extent of ‘out of school’ ethnic minority young people in Hong Kong, there is absolutely no literature found yet that focused on understanding the reasons behind ethnic minority students being ‘out of school’ and what their ‘out of school’ life looks like. In-depth understanding of all these are very important if Hong Kong is to realize the potential of its ethnic minority young people. Given the gap in the literature we aim to answer the following three questions in the remainder of this book:

  1. 1.

    What is the extent of ‘out of school’ ethnic minority young people in Hong Kong?

  2. 2.

    What are the reasons for ethnic minority young people being ‘out of school’?

  3. 3.

    What is the life of ‘out of school’ ethnic minority young people in Hong Kong?

By doing so we hope to complement the large literature on the in-school experiences of ethnic minority students while opening up a new and important area of investigation that has significant implications for access and equity in Hong Kong schools.