《家長選擇全日制幼兒服務調查研究》報告

配合香港教育學院的願景，強調學院與社會保持緊密聯繫的主導價值及定位，並回應教育政策與領導學系 2010 至 2012 年發展藍圖「與持份者合作進行本土及國際性的研究及建議」的目標，教育政策論壇的研究小組與非牟利學前教育機構議會合作進行 《家長選擇全日制幼兒服務調查研究》。是項政策研究，目的為了解家長選用全日制幼兒教育服務的原因及學券計劃推行後的影響。問卷調查於 2010 年 2-3 月進行，回收 10,206 份，回收率達 61.9%。
學前教育學券計劃於 2007 年實施，根據政府文件，推行學券計劃是以支援家庭為出發點，目的為減輕家長的財政負擔，提升教育質素，讓所有適齡學童得到費用負擔得來而質素優良的幼兒教育。研究發現，對社經地位較低家庭，「學費」、「地點」和「資訊」是為選擇全日制服務所最期盼改善的項目，推行免費全日服務，改善全日服務學額在各區分佈，以及為家長提供更多學校資訊，如此才更切合弱勢社群家長選校的需求，實現政策宣稱推行學券計劃為減輕家長經濟負擔，讓家長有自由選擇的目標。另一方面，對社經地位較高家庭，「完善環境設施」、「人手支援」和「教師工作條件」是為選擇全日制服務所最期盼改善的項目，這些關乎教育質素的項目成為較高社經背景家長選校時的考量，由此，亦符應政策宣稱推行學券計劃為提升幼兒教育質素，讓家長有自由選擇的目標。
實踐教育機會均等，讓社會上有需要的人得到合理補助，乃文明社會追求公義的核心價值。惟令全日制幼兒教育服務的學童處於不公義的情況，皆因全日制幼兒教育服務的營運費以至學費向來比半日制服務為高，學券計劃單以半日制服務作為幼稚園的營運計算基礎，導致政策對全日制服務的力度不足，令減輕家長經濟負擔的預期成效在半日制和全日制服務上產生一大落差。當半日制的學童可以頗低學費去享有幼兒教育時，全日制服務的家長卻仍要支撑相當高昂的學費。
The Education Policy Forum research team and the Council of Non-profit-making Organizations for Pre-primary Education (CNOPE) jointly worked together to conduct a study titled “Parents’ choice of Full-Day Early Childhood Services”. This endeavor was a response to the vision of the Hong Kong Institute of Education to maintain close relationships with the society as well as the 2010-2012 strategic plan of the Department of Education Policy and Leadership to collaborate with stakeholders in local and international studies and recommendations. The policy study aimed at understanding the reasons behind parents’ choices of full-day services and the policy effects of the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (thereafter voucher scheme). This study administered a survey between February and March in 2010 and collected 10,206 completed questionnaires in total. The response rate was 61.9 per cent.
The government introduced the voucher scheme in 2007. The scheme is intended to be a form of family support. It aims at reducing parents' financial burden and improving the quality of the provision so as to provide all eligible children with affordable quality early childhood education. As revealed by the survey study, lower socio-economic status (SES) families tend to indicate “tuition fee”, “location” and “information” as items that need most improvement in the choice of full-day services, i.e. implementing free full-day provision, improving the distribution of full-day places in each district, and providing more school information to parents. These items are important to meet the needs of disadvantaged parents when making choices and achieve the policy goal of reducing family financial burden to enhance free choice. With regard to higher SES families, “improving the environment and facilities”, “support for human resources” and “the work conditions of teachers” are the top items that need improvement. These items, all related to education quality, are considerations emphasized by higher SES families in the choice of full-day services. They are also in line with the government’s policy goal of raising quality to facilitate free choice of parents.
The pursuit of justice is core to civilized societies. Education equality should be ensured through providing reasonable support to those in need of help. Unfortunately, the findings reveal the injustices faced by children of full-day services, due to high operation costs and high tuition fees as compared to half-day services. The voucher scheme calculates kindergarten operation subsidy based on half-day provision. This has led to the weak support for full-day provision, resulting in a significant gap in the expected policy effect of reducing parents’ financial burden between the two types of service. When children of half-day services can enjoy relatively less expensive early childhood education, parents of full-day services continue to afford high tuition fees for their children.