Musings - On Kindergarten

Early childhood education is important and it should be, the youth of today are the leaders and innovators of tomorrow.  In Hong Kong however it is a most serious venture.  Imagine my surprise when I began looking at some sort of formal kindergarten education for Juliette, my bright and inquisitive little five year old and I were told after her initial assessment that she was "behind".  That's correct, her level of reading and arithmetic were that of a child 12 to 18 months younger than she.  What?

As it turns out they start their kids super early and push their kids pretty hard, so hard in fact that six years ago they began measuring what is called the Student Pressure Index, but more of my thoughts on that later.  In her school there are kids as young as 18 months, infants to be sure and they are taught to sit and learn their letters and numbers in an organized and orderly fashion.  In Canada when my daughters were 18 months old they attended daycare services but here in HK its the age you begin your scholarly career, where is the fun in that?

Many kids spend their whole day at school which isn't all that different in terms of time.  My own daughters also spent most of the day in other persons care while my wife and I earned our keep.  Where it gets a little silly is when pre-school or kindergarten classes are concluded for the day many of these children have more learning to attend, cram schools they are called.  They are registered in music lesson and art lesson or find themselves with further english lessons and various sports clubs.  And from what I've come to understand this continues well through their teens and into high school.  

This brings back to the Student Pressure Index I mentioned earlier.  The Student Pressure Index is exactly what it sounds to be; a measurement of how much pressure the students feel to succeed. That pressure can come from their families, educators or simply the expectations set by society in general where the competition for good jobs can be fiercely intense.  It was reported not long ago that the Student Pressure Index is the lowest it has been since its inception 6 years ago.  The index was created in order to determine the causes of the high rate of suicide amongst the youth of Hong Kong in high school and university populations.  To think, the problem has gotten so bad that an index for measurement was created to track its severity and the governments success or failure of the measures they have taken.

When we went on holidays over Christmas Juliette, who remember is in kindergarten, was given a 50 page workbook and told it was her holiday homework.  And in case you are wondering, yes, she does come home with homework every single day.  Can you imagine, holiday homework, at age 5.  Even her swim lessons were more like an hour of drills, but on that account at least she can swim now on her own.

I guess that's just one of those cultural differences.