Hong Kong kindergartens are unwelcoming towards children who do not speak Chinese, found an equality watchdog.
Schools have been found rejecting applications or giving discouraging responses to inquiries about admissions to non-Chinese speakers.
The Equal Opportunities Commission warned that the results from the recent survey on kindergarten admission policies and attitudes towards applicants may be considered indirect discrimination if there is “no justifiable reason”.
Currently, non-Chinese speaking students are enrolled at 59.6% of the kindergartens in the survey.
It was found, however, that 26.3% did not allow or gave ambiguous remarks to ethnic-minority applicants.
According to senior equal opportunities office Raymond Ho, schools may justify such attitudes with the lack of experience on admitting non-Chinese speaking students or because the language of instruction is in Cantonese.
Some schools may even suggest that the parent look for another school without giving any specific reason, he added.
The survey also found that 20.5% of kindergartens use Chinese language proficiency as a selection criterion, which the watchdog found “unrealistic” for children under the age of three to be as fluent as those from Chinese backgrounds, reported Hong Kong Free Press.
“Kindergartens which have never admitted [ethnic minority] students need more encouragement, direction and education,” he said.