This month, I've had the pleasure of working two Saturdays at my school. Yes, it is strange to say that a teacher would be obliged to be on duty on a Saturday, but it's quite common here in Hong Kong. I only share this with a better attitude now that I'm on Chinese New Year holiday. It's safe to say I wasn't so positive during those weekends.
This weekend, we had our new student interviews. Because I work at a private school here in Hong Kong under the Direct Subsidy Scheme, our school has to ensure that we have a new crop of students coming in every September. So marketing and promotion becomes a big deal. We try and get our name out there as much as possible. That's why we had our Open House Day a couple weekends ago.
I'm finally starting to realize just how important this school business is- and it is actually a business. During the open day, I overheard some parents talking to some teachers about why they wanted to apply to UCCKE, and one parent said quite forcefully, "I live around this neighbourhood and I always see your students commute to and from school. Never once have I seen them smoke or cut the queue line at a bus stop. So I know you teach your students well and I want my kid to learn this stuff."
I guess that's why the school cares so much about tidy uniforms and appearance. Because each student carries the school's reputation into the community and other people base their assumptions of the school's educational quality on how nicely their hair is kept and how neatly their socks are pulled up.
This Saturday, I had to interview prospective Form 1 students for September. This year, around 600 applied for the 150 spots we have. That's important to note because this year there are around 5000 less Form 1 students in Hong Kong. Schools and teachers have been freaking out because there is a projected decline in student population and less and less students are available to enter into schools. It's projected that by 2016, 21,500 less students in the school system here in HK. (source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-09/13/content_11296851.htm)
So less students mean smaller classrooms, which is good until the school fires an obsolete teacher. And less teachers mean that quality goes down and the public doesn't enroll. Then more teachers get fired and then schools shut down and people are out of work. That's part of the reason teachers work so hard and promote the school. Their jobs are on the line.
The interviews went well- some students were quite well spoken, both in English and Chinese. I had no real highlights of the day, except for one student saying, "I want to come to your school because I pass by on the minibus and I see that your school is big and nice." When asked why she didn't choose the school next to ours since it's also on her minibus route, she answered, "Because I can see this one better."
My colleague Ricky had a more interesting one. When asked whether he had joined any speech festivals before, the student replied, "I will.... eat candy."
We have a long way to go if we end up teaching these kids.
