In this photo taken on July 15, 2023, martial art teacher Mic Leung (right) teaches Wing Tsun at the Fringe Club in the Central area of Hong Kong. (PHOTO / AFP)

Lawmakers and headmasters are calling for reducing teachers’ administrative work and improving their welfare while also saying the city need to train more teachers, as the turnover rate of teachers in kindergartens through secondary schools continues to spike.

Data released by the city’s Education Bureau on Wednesday showed that 6,748 teachers from primary and secondary schools and kindergartens left their posts in the 2022-23 school year — a 25 percent hike increase compared with the previous school year. The loss of teachers continued to widen in the past three years from kindergartens to secondary schools, with attrition rates all doubling from 2020-21 to 2022-23.

In public and Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) secondary schools, the departure rates of teachers reached 9.8 and 10.1 percent respectively, or 2,665 teachers in total

The worst situation is in kindergartens, with 1,810 teachers leaving in the 2022-23 school year, a 33.6 percent increase compared with the previous year. Kindergarten teachers in the 2022-23 school year who quit their jobs was 13.3 to 19 percent, depending on the teachers’ years of experience. Teachers with 10 years or less of experience saw the highest rate, at 19 percent.

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In public and Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) secondary schools, the departure rates of teachers reached 9.8 and 10.1 percent respectively, or 2,665 teachers in total.

Public and DSS primary schools experienced attrition rates of 8.5 and 8.9 percent respectively, with 2,036 teachers leaving their positions.

In a written reply submitted to the Legislative Council on Wednesday, Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin attributed the growing turnover rate of teachers to retirement, further education, transfers to other types of schools, engagement in other industries, and personal reasons.

She said the government has implemented several measures in recent years to support school development and provide teachers with a stable teaching environment and better career prospects.

Choi said that the Education Bureau closely monitors the teacher workforce and takes timely measures to ensure the quality of education remains unaffected and school operations run smoothly. She also said that with an expected decline in the school-aged population in the future, the demand for teachers is anticipated to decrease correspondingly.

Choi said the city has recruited higher-than-expected untrained teachers in the 2021-22 and 2022-32 school years.

The bureau has provided extra funding for local universities to offer hundreds more places in their teacher training courses in the current and the next school years, Choi added.

Calling for more places for education-related degrees, the head of Hon Wah College, Kwan Wing-bun, suggested that regular professional development activities and events be held to help relieve teachers’ stress

Calling the situation extremely unfavorable, Lillian Kwok Ling-lai, a lawmaker and a registered teacher, told China Daily on Thursday that the teacher attrition rate would also affect Hong Kong’s ability to attract talent, noting that some incoming professionals who are parents are struggling with school selection due to the shortage of Mandarin- and English-speaking teachers.

Kwok suggested increasing quotas for certain subject areas with high teacher attrition rates and allocating more places in postgraduate education diploma programs.

She also proposed allowing the Chinese mainland and overseas teachers to teach in Hong Kong to fill the vacancies.

Reducing teachers’ administrative workload is another key move to alleviating their burdens, as well as providing more training courses to help teachers deal with curriculums and relationship with students and parents, Kwok said.

Calling for more places for education-related degrees, the head of Hon Wah College, Kwan Wing-bun, suggested that regular professional development activities and events be held to help relieve teachers’ stress.

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Qu Jiarui, a Chinese teaching fellow at the Chinese International School, said she believes that the high teacher attrition rate is mainly caused by the decrease of the birth rate. Qu has observed concerns among primary school teachers who are afraid of becoming unemployment in the future. Some have even chosen to emigrate, she said.

“For Chinese teachers in international schools, I don’t see a high turnover rate. Most teachers retire naturally or quit due to health issues,” she said.

Qu also pointed out that being a teacher in Hong Kong could be stressful. Apart from fierce competitions among peers, they have to handle teaching, lesson preparations, administrative issues, grading assignments and exams, as well as attending meetings, organizing student exhibitions, and coordinating school outings, Qu said.