Studying abroad: Why and what’s next? (DSE 2015 Paper 2Q.4)
In this era, under the influence of globalization, the transportation and communication technology have been much more mature. Meanwhile, more families in Hong Kong are enjoying a higher economic status, due to the skyrocketing economic development of the city. Compounding the situation, they become the prerequisite of sending children to other countries to complete their schooling. However, what are the major reasons that explain why parents are eager to send their children overseas? What is the impact thereafter?
The first reason why parents demand their children to study overseas is that they prefer their beloved ones to have a more holistic development. Hong Kong’s education system is notorious for its repetitive, exam-oriented learning pattern, not developing life skills, but only focusing on knowledge. What ends up is that children are buried under an avalanche of work for a prolonged period of time, not having adequate chances to build or broaden inter-personal relationships. Needs of children have been off the radar. In contrast, studying abroad allows children to encounter an array of cultures from their classmates, since it is much more common for colleges to hold different ethnic minority students than in Hong Kong. What is more is that children’s independence can be trained. That the millennials are receiving excess, redundant care is no longer news. Help from domestic helpers, like helping children to prepare food, tidying up their room, stand in the way of the development of children’s independence. Being sent abroad, children no longer enjoy these “privileges” but are forced to take care of themselves, and create a routine habit. That having adequate knowledge and being smart is far from enough in terms of one’s life is obvious. Encountering different cultures, brushing up multi-lingual skills and learning to be independent pave the way of success for children.
Another possible reason for parents to send children abroad is that parents believe that their children will have an edge when they are looking for highly competitive jobs. Being the administrator or manager of companies, some parents prefer their children to have an appealing education background, such as studying abroad such that they can excel more easily. Not only does this kind of background show that the children, or the interviewees, may have a broad scope of horizons and outstanding language skills, but it also hints that they may be more innovative or eager to learn new things as the western education style is more interactive and flexible. They may be able to adapt to changes more easily. Both cases allow the interviewees to boost the company’s development.
Now that we understand why parents send their children abroad to complete their schooling, we shall take the impact of so on local schools and on children who have studied abroad into consideration.
In terms of local schools, more students planning to study abroad means less local students, while the number of teachers, tutors and all sorts of resources stay constant, creating a surplus of resources. It is certainly possible for part of the teachers to be unemployed in the long term. Meanwhile, on the bright side, it is a great opportunity for schools to provide more care to each student. Examples include small study group, mental health care, etc. Not needing to have the burden as heavy as in the past, the teachers could have less working pressure and hence improve teaching quality, which is both beneficial to students’ learning and schools’ reputation.
In terms of children who study abroad, they may be less familiar with Hong Kong’s social affairs, since they have left Hong Kong for a prolonged period of time. International news usually cannot provide a very in-depth look into matters in Hong Kong. It may be a problem when they come back to their home town. Not having common topic with their peers could be a thick, unbreakable wall between them and their peers, hindering their development of the local social network. On the other hand, studying abroad allows children to know friends who have different cultures from all over the world. This could be important as the “source of help” for the children is not geographically limited to where they live. This is likely to put children at an advantage in terms of life-long development, especially when they encounter problems that are originally unsolvable.
To call a spade a spade, there must be pros and cons on any matters we deal with in our lifetime. Whenever we make a decision, we should focus on both the short term and long term impacts on both ourselves and the society. Think twice before studying abroad, which could be a stepping stone for success.