The Issue of Equity and Quality of Education in Hong Kong

Abstract

Equity and Quality' is an emerging terminology that focuses on the quality of education rather than on 'excellence'. The global policy discourse is turning towards levelling up educational quality for all. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 2012 report entitled Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools claimed that the highest performing education systems (HPES) across OECD countries are those that combine high quality and equity. In such education systems, the vast majority of students can attain high level skills and knowledge that depend on their ability and drive, more than on their socio-economic background. Paradoxically, among the HPES are three East Asian systems-China, Hong Kong and Singapore-characterized by a huge income disparity between the rich and the poor with their above-40 Gini indices. Nevertheless, their high average scores in PISA 2009 illustrate that the average quality of education in respect to learning outcomes provided in these education systems are of a very high quality which benefits the whole population regardless of the socio-economic conditions of the students. How can these seemingly contradictory claims and evidences be explained? Can educational equity and quality co-exist within a highly unequal society? This article attempts to offer some explanations taking Hong Kong as an illustrative case. Employing Bourdieu's logic of practice, the article argues that both cultural habitus and structural contexts account for the achievement, albeit contested, of educational equity and quality in Hong Kong.

Displaced margins and misplaced equity: Challenges for South African higher education

“…Equity is about going beyond inclusion and racial representation and facilitating the successful completion of a degree for historically disadvantaged students, what Marginson (2011, 23) refers to as a "realist approach [which] emphasizes the agency of those excluded". Lee and Manzon (2014) make the point that despite high levels of social and economic inequality in Hong King, educational equity is well served.…”

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“…His argument, like that of Lee and Manzon (2014), was based on the cultural pressures for students to do well in a Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) such as that of Hong Kong, the proximal influence of parents as a direct CHC influence on students and reciprocally students' effort and hard work as a CHC response to parents and their duty towards them. With this explanation, high parental expectations, and in some cases pressure, coupled with a "hard work" ethic, contribute to achievement and wipe out what are undoubted differences in socioeconomic well-being in Hong Kong.…”

A case study of the integrated programme for children with disabilities in mainstream child care centres in Hong Kong: Exploring the instructional strategies

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“…The mainstream education teachers should also modify the curriculum to suit the needs and developmental stage of each child (Lai, 2018;Lai and Gill, 2017). This also ensures the quality of the curriculum and educational equity and for all children regardless their abilities (Lee and Manzon, 2014).…”