An Odd News About Religion
(For the purpose of this entry, the term "primary school" refers to schools that have the first 6 years of comppulsary education.)
While Hong Kong's secondary school places allocation is generally fair, primary school allocation have several fairness issues.
You see, nobody likes to do standardized testing on preschool kids, and many educators are of the belief that although there're differences in primary schools, the outcome of attending any primary school is not significant.
So, in Hong Kong, school discretion has priority over random assignment, and any given school can fill up all its places with discretionary admission.
The highest priority of the discretionary system are siblings of current students and children of current staff-- they're automatically admitted as long as this is raised during admission. In Hong Kong they're commonly referred as "inherited" places (Sai-jarp).
The second priority is that of the points system, when the school should assign at least 20% of the places, plus any remaining unfilled "inherited" places. Schools are not allowed to test the kids, so if there's an overdemand of such places, they can only take the kids with the highest "points," which is based on the affinity between the child and the school in question:
In all of these, the "religious affiliation" claim is the easiest to abuse, particularly many famous primary schools in Hong Kong are Catholic or Catholic, who eschews the idea of nitpicking over church jurisdictions like some protestant denominations do-- but of course they have the interest to not baptize those who are not into their religion. In the Episcopal church, where only adults can be baptized, this may be easier to deal with, but Roman Catholicism allows baptizing children...
The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong issued a press release on Thursday, saying they have received inquiries on the York Anglo-Chinese Kindergarten's Initiation Package, which costs the child HKD2,160 and the parents HKD3,255. This include Sunday schools for the child and initiation classes for the parent, and in 18 months the family will be appropriately baptized as Catholics. The children will be initialized for baptism for a year, baptized in November 2011 by Filipino clergy, and Sunday Schools will be held in their premises from September 2011.
York is one of the more expensive kindergartens in Hong Kong, even their education wasn't too special-- the owners capitalized on its proximity to some of more prestigious schools in Hong Kong and sold themselves as a school that groom the children to get into such.
The Catholic Church, hence, has to clarify:
While Hong Kong's secondary school places allocation is generally fair, primary school allocation have several fairness issues.
You see, nobody likes to do standardized testing on preschool kids, and many educators are of the belief that although there're differences in primary schools, the outcome of attending any primary school is not significant.
So, in Hong Kong, school discretion has priority over random assignment, and any given school can fill up all its places with discretionary admission.
The highest priority of the discretionary system are siblings of current students and children of current staff-- they're automatically admitted as long as this is raised during admission. In Hong Kong they're commonly referred as "inherited" places (Sai-jarp).
The second priority is that of the points system, when the school should assign at least 20% of the places, plus any remaining unfilled "inherited" places. Schools are not allowed to test the kids, so if there's an overdemand of such places, they can only take the kids with the highest "points," which is based on the affinity between the child and the school in question:
- 20 points for each parent who works at the kindergarten/ secondary school section of the primary school on the same premises, each sibling who studies in the affiliated secondary school as defined above, and each parent who is a "school manager" of such primary school.
- 10 points for every parent/sibling that are alumni of such school.
- 5 points for first-born child
- 5 points for religious affiliation, as defined by the school
- 5 points for organizational affiliation
- 10 points of age between 67-84 months.
In all of these, the "religious affiliation" claim is the easiest to abuse, particularly many famous primary schools in Hong Kong are Catholic or Catholic, who eschews the idea of nitpicking over church jurisdictions like some protestant denominations do-- but of course they have the interest to not baptize those who are not into their religion. In the Episcopal church, where only adults can be baptized, this may be easier to deal with, but Roman Catholicism allows baptizing children...
The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong issued a press release on Thursday, saying they have received inquiries on the York Anglo-Chinese Kindergarten's Initiation Package, which costs the child HKD2,160 and the parents HKD3,255. This include Sunday schools for the child and initiation classes for the parent, and in 18 months the family will be appropriately baptized as Catholics. The children will be initialized for baptism for a year, baptized in November 2011 by Filipino clergy, and Sunday Schools will be held in their premises from September 2011.
York is one of the more expensive kindergartens in Hong Kong, even their education wasn't too special-- the owners capitalized on its proximity to some of more prestigious schools in Hong Kong and sold themselves as a school that groom the children to get into such.
The Catholic Church, hence, has to clarify:
- Minors cannot baptize unless their guardians have been baptized;
- Minors can only be initiated in classes established by the Diocese;
- Any religious activities held by the Diocese are free and open to the public;
- No Filipino clergy in Hong Kong has been found to be involved with such activity; and
- Should such persons be baptized by non-Hong Kong clergy in Hong Kong, they are not appropriately baptized.