'GBA Plan May Add More Pressure On Teachers'

Education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen has warned that any expansion of the current sister school scheme must consider the extra workload it would impose on teachers, who are already under a lot of pressure.

He was responding to plans in the Greater Bay Area development blueprint announced earlier this week, where it hopes to promote local schools in Hong Kong to further expand their networks across the border.

The Sister School Scheme, that's been in place since 2004, is a platform to facilitate exchange and cooperation between Hong Kong and mainland schools.

Local schools have been paired up with those in mainland centres, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. Among them, the Guangdong-Hong Kong cooperation is the largest in scale.

Currently around 500 primary and secondary schools have joined the scheme, and Ip warned that local teachers may have a lot to bear if it becomes bigger due to the Greater Bay Area Initiative.

"I would suggest we have to make sure that all the things would be affordable for the teachers, because the teachers are already having a very heavy workload for the time being. Any kind of new sister school plan and its exchange programmes will bring about a lot of work pressure," he said.