It is of public consensus that poverty is one of the most serious problem faced by Hong Kong. Beneath the glamour as praised by the international community, there lies an M-shaped structured society, literally meaning the widening income gap. Although the government seems to have played its role to equalize learning opportunities by providing free education for all and handing out various subsidies, unfortunately, the struggle for impoverished families to meet the education needs of their children has not been eased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To begin with, underprivileged children do not enjoy as\nmuch aid and resources in studies as their affluent counterparts since low-income\nhouseholds could not afford tutorial classes for their children. While tutorial\nclasses are not indispensable, they could definitely give a push to facilitate\nchildren\u2019s learning. For instance, the tutors would given them extra exercise\nthat are tailor-made according to their weaknesses in special areas. They could\nalso fill in the gaps in children\u2019s learning and follow up on their progress.\nYet such tutoring services are often charged at a high price by money-greedy\ntutorial centres. Paying for these fees would inevitably bring a heavy\nfinancial burden to the family\u2019s account. Therefore, when having questions in\nstudies, impoverished children may have nowhere to seek help. Their\nmisconceptions and queries in studies may accumulate like a snowball running\ndownhill, adversely affecting their performances in assessments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, children from grass roots backgrounds have less\nguidance from their parents. In order to make ends meet, their parents often\nhave to work extensively long periods of time, engaging in demanding labour\nactivities. Many of them work as security guards, street cleaners or sales. Not\nonly are they paid unfairly low wages, but they also have to work unreasonably\nlong hours. As a result, the time they spend at home with their children is\nminimal. Children are at a crucial stage of character development. They are\nprone to make mistakes and go astray easily, often by following what their\npeers do and neglecting the consequences. When the time spent on\nparent-children communication is insufficient, parents could not effectively\ninculcate correct values in the young minds and teach them to distinguish right\nfrom wrong. Children lack moral education from their parents or a role model to\nfollow. It is more likely that their behavior will deviate from the norm, which\nundermines their chance to focus on and thrive in studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apart from that, parents from disadvantaged families are\noften not well-educated and hence cannot arouse children\u2019s curiosity in\nlearning and inspire them. The majority of them may only hold a secondary\neducation diploma, but have never attended tertiary education. Their knowledge\nand international exposure is very limited. Children have curious minds and\nlike asking questions about possibly everything in this world. Their parents\nmay not know how to answer them and satisfy their curiosity. I have seen\nparents simply ignore their children or respond by snarling, \u201cShut up! Don\u2019t\ndisturb me!\u201d This shatters children\u2019s desire for knowledge and give them the\nwrong impression that asking questions is a strict \u201cno\u201d. How are they supposed\nto become a critical or creative thinker if they have been taught since\ntoddlers that raising doubts is discouraged? It even becomes harder to change\ntheir mindsets once they grow older. As a consequence, it is less likely for\nthem to unleash their potential in learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The issues lie with the fact that the marginalised\ncommunity are actually locked in a vicious cycle. There is evidence that\nchildren born in the lower class are more likely to suffer thanks to cross-generation\npoverty, since the education system fails to let them climb up the social\nladder to improve the lives of their family. Hence how could society join hands\nto ensure that impoverished children have equal access to learning\nopportunities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is no doubt that the government plays an\nindispensable role since it has the most resources in terms of both man-power\nand money. They could allocate more subsidies for families that live under the\npoverty line. Families could use them to purchase textbooks, stationery or\nother learning materials to assist their children\u2019s learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, different non-government organizations or social\ncentres could organize more tutorial classes for free or at low prices. They\ncould invite volunteers from universities or secondary school students to teach\nneedy students. Those tutors are experienced enough to handle the learning\nneeds of children. What\u2019s more, they could put old book collection boxes around\nand later distribute them to families in need. Children could make use of them\nwisely to enrich their knowledge without having the guilt of bringing a burden\nto their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The above measures are effective in the short term. In\nthe long term, the Labour Department could offer more vocational training for\nthe grass roots so that they could learn a new skill and seek a better job. The\npoor parents could then have more income and resources to finance and support\ntheir children\u2019s education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All the above measures could help to promote equity and ensure those who are not born with a silver spoon in their mouths will have a fair chance in pursuing tertiary education. With concerted effort, underprivileged children will not be deprived of equal education opportunities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is of public consensus that poverty is one of the most serious problem faced by Hong Kong. Beneath the glamour as praised by the international community, there lies an M-shaped structured society, literally meaning the widening income gap. Although the government seems to have played its role to .........<\/p>Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":8474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","language-en","classlevel-s6","schoolyear-80"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6616,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6614\/revisions\/6616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}