FAQs

• RCHK and DC have no catchment area. Any student residing in Hong Kong can apply to attend.

• When the Colleges are at full capacity, at least 70% of the total students enrolled must have at least one parent who has Hong Kong permanent resident status. 

Click here to see the frequently asked questions on the Online Admissions System (OAS). 

Yes. Applicants will need to complete an online application form and also a Nomination Rights application form, which is available for download from the ESF website. The NR application and cheque is submitted in hard copy to ESF Centre.  The NRS which will be open for application October 2012 is for admissions for August 2013.

The NRS starts in October 2012. Applications will be accepted starting from 9am on 3 October 2012 at the ESF Centre, 25/F, 1063 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. All Nomination Rights applications will be handled by the ESF Centre.

NR applications are processed according to the date and time when the application form together with the deposit of HK$50,000 are received at the ESF Centre.

NRS applicants are the third priority after teachers’ children and siblings of ESF students. During the first month after NR application opens, overseas families and foreign passport holders in Hong Kong with conditional terms of stay will be given a priority.

No. Starting from 3 October 2012, the Corporate Surety Scheme has been replaced by the ESF Nomination Rights Scheme. Please refer to the website for details.

No. The nominee has to be a named individual on the application form. The Nomination Holder must be a parent of the nominee.

For the 2013-14 academic year, the number of places offered to NRS applicants will be limited to 150 across all ESF schools from Year 1 to 13.

The HK$50,000 deposit is refundable only if the child fails the admissions assessment.

If the child passes the assessment, the HK$450,000 must be paid when the place is accepted.

No, the HK$500,000 is for a named individual and is non-transferable and non-refundable once paid for a confirmed place.

Placement is subject to success at interview/assessment and place availability. Priority is being accorded to waitlist placement and consequent timing of consideration for interview/assessment.

Yes, placement is subject to availability at the school and a commitment to remain at the school for a defined period. NR applicants may indicate up to three schools in order of preference at which the Nominee can be considered. Waitlist placement will be considered for each school listed in turn. They must be prepared to attend any of the schools indicated. Transfer is possible after a period of time but it is applicable only if the family resides in the school zone. Nominees must undertake to make their own travel arrangements if living outside the area covered by the school bus service.

Same as all other applicants, the NR nominees will go through the standard interview assessment procedures. Overseas families will be assessed when they are in Hong Kong.

No, both Discovery College and Renaissance College have their own NR schemes. There is no NR scheme for the four ESF International Kindergartens.

No. The NRS is not applicable to applicants with Special Educational Needs. There are separate admissions procedures for children applying for Learning Support Centres and Jockey Club Sarah Roe School. Please see the details at:  http://www.esf.edu.hk/SEN/Admissions

After confirmation of the school place applied through the NRS, applicants will have pay the NR balance of HK$450,000, the admissions deposit and the Refundable Capital Levy of HK$25,000. Please see: http://www.esf.edu.hk/our-schools/admissions-criteria/school-fees for details of the payments required.

It is possible that NR nominees can start before August 2013 if a place is available at the school and year applied for.

Yes. The number of places offered to NR applicants will be limited to only 150 in the 2013-14 academic year. All other applicants can apply for ESF school places following the usual admissions procedures. Please see: http://www.esf.edu.hk/our-schools/admissions-criteria/admissions-policy-and-procedures for details.

No. There will not be any refund in these cases.

No. The Nomination Rights is offered at one school for that school only.

For the sake of transparency the ESF’s annual accounts are published just as they are presented to the Board after they have been audited by our external auditor, KPMG. The accounting terms are used in a strict technical sense and do not always have the same meaning as they do for a layperson. 

In accounting terms, the “surplus” of HK$89 million represents income less expenditure in the year, but it does NOT represent cash in the bank. In fact, there was a net cash outflow as at 31 August 2010.   The HK$89 million had been used on capital expenditure of HK$137 million (this included capital works on buildings, computers, equipment, furniture and fittings and air-conditioning) in the 2009-10 year. In accounting practice, capital expenditures are added to fixed assets (shown in the Balance Sheet) rather than to expenses in the Profit and Loss Account, and hence a positive surplus has been shown in the P and L.

In the 2011-12 academic year, the 12,932 students in ESF schools and the 4,313in the Private Independent Schools and the kindergartens include over 50 different nationalities. Almost 70% of our students have parents who are permanent residents of Hong Kong.

In ESF schools, British nationals took up the largest proportion at 27%, while other nationalities were evenly distributed. However, in the two Private Independent Schools, Chinese and Hong Kong SAR passport holders were the majority: 39% altogether.

Yes, ESF Centre conducts tender exercises on behalf of the 15 ESF schools for commodities that are commonly used in schools, so that more favorable deals can be negotiated. Currently, we have established over 20 bulk purchase contracts including the supply of stationery items, toners and ink cartridges, photocopying paper, computers, laptops, LCD monitors, printers, projectors, hygienic products, travel services, etc. ESF has Procurement Procedures which the whole organisation, including ESF Centre and the schools, has to follow.  The procedures are developed with reference to Education Bureau (EDB)’s and Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC)’s guidelines.  Openness, fairness, transparency and value for money are the important considerations in any tender exercise.

SIS’ Laptop Programme was initiated in late 2006 with the objective of enhancing students’ learning through introduction of an information technology infrastructure that connects every student on the network with their own laptop. In vendor selection, there were a number of criteria such as offering of education software applications, user-friendliness, support services provided by the vendor, costs involved, etc. To ensure that the most suitable vendor would be selected, a Laptop Committee was set up comprising of the Principal, Vice Principal, teaching staff, parents, students and IT staff from both SIS and ESF Centre, and the committee spent nearly a year in research and consultation.  Moreover, two groups of students were engaged in a pilot programme, with one group using a window-based system and the other using the Apple platform. The school then conducted a tender exercise for selection of the vendor. After reviewing the tender submissions and the feedback from pilot students and staff, the Laptop Committee recommended going for a single platform because it could provide the best infrastructure support and highest teaching/learning efficiency.  A single platform will also facilitate issuing of software licenses to students. Since the proposals from different vendors comprised different components, the costs could not be compared directly. Apple was ultimately chosen due to their extensive experience in one-to-one programmes in the education sector and their expertise in educational software applications. They also committed to set up a service centre at SIS to provide prompt and convenient maintenance support to the SIS community. Apple offered a special education discount to SIS plus a 3-Year warranty plan which covers replacement of battery. This is a special offer to ESF schools and is not available to the general customers.

It is clear that funding will need to come from a number of sources to meet the cost of urgent capital projects and provide for the sustainability of ESF schools. While Government grants will be extremely important, we will use our own cash-flow, borrow against our property portfolio and seek to raise funds from donors. The refundable levy will make an important contribution to this overall effort.

The levy will eventually raise a total of about HK$300m and will minimize the amount of borrowings required in the first stage of capital investment, which will take place over the next 10 years.  This $300 Million is effectively an interest free loan from parents to contribute to the redevelopment of ESF schools

Debentures do not form part of our plans. Debentures usually confer a right to a place at a school, whereas admission into ESF depends chiefly on the student’s ability to access the curriculum.

The one-off levy will be payable when your daughter reaches Year Seven.

The levy will be charged in full for a family’s first two children and reduced to HK$10,000 for subsequent children.

No. When calculating the levy for each child, we will only count children currently in the system. The refundable levy in this case would still be HK$25,000.

ESF has a financial hardship scheme that have fee remission for families who experience a sudden change in their material circumstances. There is however, no hardship scheme available for the RCL.  Further information on the scheme can be found here.

The levy will apply to all students equally, with the exception of ESF teachers, who will pay a levy of $HK5,000 for each child to whom the levy applies, regardless of the total number of children in the family attending ESF schools.

Yes, they would normally be expected to pay the levy in their first term at ESF (if they have joined after August 2011).

No, this is a one-off levy, normally paid in either Year 1 or 7.

The levy will be repaid at the end of the student’s final academic year, net of any outstanding fees.

ESF is putting a lot more effort into raising funds through its schools’ various alumni associations. However, they are likely to be only a small part of the solution given the large infrastructure requirements.

We will always look to the Government for support in our major building projects.

This would be a one-off measure which would leave us with few options for the future. However, we do intend to use part of this portfolio as collateral for loans to help realise these projects.

All ESF students currently enjoy facilities that were paid for by previous generations of parents. It is important to remember that the levy is refundable and we hope, therefore, that it gives parents a relatively manageable way to contribute to the sustainability of ESF education for future students.

As the levy is reimbursable, it is not tax-deductible. As ESF is a registered charity, any gifts made to it are tax-deductible. Parents have the option of making the levy a donation instead of having it refunded.

An employer can pay the levy in the same way that they can pay fees.

The capital levy will go towards capital projects. We will still rely on the recurrent subvention to meet operating costs.

No. The aim of the levy scheme is that ESF can make use of the interest generated to contribute towards the cost of capital projects.

It is important to keep these two issues separate. The main driver for fee increases is staff and curriculum costs. If we needed to increase salaries to attract and retain staff, that would put upward pressure on fees. The refundable capital levy is aimed solely at helping to meet the costs of capital projects.

If loans are required, any loans taken out by ESF to support the capital refurbishment of buildings will be repaid from operating cash flow. It is not expected that major borrowings will be required until 2013 or beyond, depending on the timing of any investment in the rebuilding of Island School.

All ESF major building projects will be presented in detail to the Board of Governors for scrutiny and endorsement prior to awarding contracts and commencing construction works.

The RCL fund will be collected over a period of 6-7 years, during which there will be a requirement to spend funds on the KJS and KGV projects. Contributions to the fund that are not spent on the KJS or KGV projects will be managed internally and overseen by the Finance Committee, which is made up of ESF Board Members and independent appointees.

When the refundable capital levy is paid, an official receipt will be issued, parents are required to re-present the official receipt when they apply for the repayment. The repayment will be made 30 days after the official receipt is submitted. Procedures to provide refunds where receipts have been lost will also be put in place.

ESF operates two Private Independent Schools (PIS), Renaissance College in Ma On Shan and Discovery College in DB. The HK Government provided capital funding for the construction of the schools equivalent to the cost of a standard HK government school with the same number of students. ESF provided funding for the balance between the HK government capital funding and the actual costs of the project in the form of a long term loan arrangement. Once the original loan is repaid, each PIS will continue to pay ESF an annual premium, recognizing the original investment made. In other words, the PIS are paying back the original loan to ESF and will eventually contribute back to the future of ESF via the annual premium.

There will be a requirement to spend RCL funds on the KJS and KGV projects. Island School is the next priority for ESF and needs to be addressed in the next five years to enable a feasible solution to be engineered. Each individual school development project is discussed in detail with the stakeholder community as designs and plans are progressed.

There is a performance management scheme in place for all ESF staff, including teachers. The performance management of teachers is the responsibility of the Principal and the Leadership Team of the school.

Research has been conducted to compare teachers’ salaries with the five comparator schools in Hong Kong at the end of 2010. These are our major competitors in attracting staff from overseas. Due to limited resources, the research has not covered other cities in Asia. The findings show that teachers’ pay increases in 2011-12 will be in the range 3.0% to 3.5% for the five comparator schools in Hong Kong. Evidence indicates that ESF remains competitive in attracting teachers when compared with the UK and New Zealand, but not anymore for Australia and Canada due to the appreciation of the Australian and Canadian Dollar. In the past three years recruitment from Australia has decreased from 22-24% of teachers to 16-17% to less than 8% last year. We are expecting further erosion in the current recruitment round. No teachers were recruited from Canada for the academic year 2010-11 also because of the excellent pension scheme and benefits Canadian teachers are enjoying in their home country.

ESF has a well-established policy of allowing staff to work beyond 60 subject to approval. In the policy, application for extension of contract beyond age of 60 can be made to the School Council upon recommendation of the Principal (or to the Chief Executive Officer for staff at ESF Centre). Contract renewals can be made up to the year in which an individual becomes 65.

At the moment, the our recruitment system supports Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Please try again using one of the above mentioned web browsers.

For any other inquiries, please contact the HR Recruitment Team at jobs@esfcentre.edu.hk

Star Ferry

Jan 2009

Scenery near Guilin

Supermarkets stock Marmite and Vegemite; Tim Tams and Branston Pickle. Imported fresh fruit and vegetables are often Australian and a range of Waitrose products from the UK are stocked by a local supermarket chain.

The theme park opened in September 2005 and despite being smaller than other Disney resorts, offers an enjoyable day out. Rival attraction, Ocean Park has grabbed some of Disneyland’s limelight recently; especially since the arrival of another two giant pandas from China, bringing the total to four.

ESF supports Staff Members in their study for and attaining further relevant professional qualifications to enable them to perform current or future jobs successfully. Staff Members attending professional development courses may need to sit examinations to attain professional qualifications. This Policy outlines the eligibility of Staff Members to Examination Leave and explains the procedures to be followed in applying for such leave.

The cross-harbour Star Ferry ride only costs $2.20. Take your camera.

Star Ferry
Jan 2009

It depends where home is. Off-peak rates to the UK, US, Australia, Canada or New Zealand cost around 39 cents per minute with even cheaper special offers appearing periodically. Fast internet speeds mean computer 'webcam' phone calls using software such as Skype are stable and of good quality.

Compared with some countries yes, although teachers will discover that the increased buying power of superstores 'back home' has meant a levelling of prices for everything from computers to cameras in recent years. Relative to salary, however, gadgets and gizmos represent very good value.

Living in the centre of one of the world’s most frenetic cities appeals to many ESF teachers. City apartments are never far from restaurants, bars and shops but are inevitably more expensive than less-conveniently located accommodation. The Outlying Islands and New Territories appeal to families and those for whom space, and even a garden is a priority. Rental rates are cheaper but remember to factor in ferry costs and the extra commuting time.

Beach on Lantau Island

The original freeze in the late 1990’s was connected to the Asian economic slump and had nothing to do with the management of ESF, though the Government was looking for a way to bring the subvention to an end. Since the audit review of 2004, ESF has been working closely with EDB. EDB has stated that since the Director of Audit report was issued, ESF made good progress in management.  At the end of 2010, EDB has announced that the review of government subvention of ESF has begun. We understand that it will take some time before a conclusion can be reached and therefore the subvention level will be frozen for another year.

The government subvention will only be spent on ESF schools and will not be spent on ESL. This can be achieved since the accounts of ESF and ESL are completely separate.

Yes. ESF publishes its financial reports and annual reports every year. Published reports can be downloaded from the website: http://www.esf.edu.hk/about-esf/accounts-and-annual-report .

The Board and ESF management are committed to find cost savings and efficiencies across the organisation in order to minimise the impact on school fees, for example, through energy saving, sourcing of lower-cost vendors, minimising expenditure whenever possible, etc.

The KJS redevelopment project is a complete knock down and rebuilding of an enlarged school building to accommodate all students (who are currently split across two smaller buildings). The cost is calculated based on the overall scope of the project. The cost per square metre of building space is at or below that of a standard HK government school.

Yes. ESF’s Facilities Department has a database of all the buildings and assesses the redevelopment needs. All major redevelopment project proposals have to go through the Major Projects Committee and will be scrutinised by the Board. The Major Projects Committee is responsible for overseeing all the contracts and cost management.

The project costs are assessed by a team of professional staff and vetted by an independent quantity surveyor to ensure that individual buildings and safety standards are met. The overall project costs are then further reviewed by a Major Building Projects Committee of the ESF Board and ultimately by the ESF Board of Governors.

The relevant expenses were not intended for student recruitment purposes but for facilitating the communications between ESF and the stakeholders. The expenditures involved include the website development and maintenance, annual report, photography and video shooting, information brochures, inter-school events, advertising, alumni development, etc. As a responsible organisation, it is very important that parents and the community are well-informed of ESF’s latest developments and contributions and what it does to keep pace with latest trends in global education.

As at the 2010-11 academic year, for the IB Primary Years Programme, the annual fee per authorised school is HK$52,635.90; and the authorisation and evaluation visits are approximately HK$22,500; the latter happen once every 3-5 years.

As at the 2010-11 academic year, for CIS/WASC, the annual membership and accreditation fee is HK$19,880.40; the evaluation fee is HK$28,400.60; and the visiting team cost varies according to the size of team, e.g. Kennedy School’s was HK$130,049.49 and KGV’s was HK$169,810.38.

According to the Development and Operating Agreement (DOA) between ESF and ESL, it was agreed that the funds ESF put into the construction of the two schools and the subsequent annual capital replenishment have to be repaid within 20 years, including a 3-month HIBOR+1% return. (Note: HIBOR is the short form for Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rates.)

ESF does not own ESL (the latter is a company limited by guarantee); however, ESF has management control over ESL to ensure that there is a healthy development of ESL. The current arrangement was reviewed and approved by the ESF Board of Governors.

The relationship between ESF and ESL is described in the ESL Operating Framework.

The income arising from ESL’s classes goes to ESL, which generates income to develop its service and building up its reserves. ESL pays the individual schools rent for use of the premises. It is the individual school’s decision to rent out the facilities to outside parties and the school keeps the rental income.

ESF and ESL employ their own staff force.  ESF charges ESL a service fee for supporting ESL in management and administrative matters.

ESF charges ESL an annual administrative fee which is equivalent to the time cost of staff spent on ESL matters.

The current Directors of the ESL Board are Heather Du Quesnay (Chief Executive Officer), Vivian Cheung (Chief Financial Officer), Pam Ryan (Director of Education) and Charles Caldwell (Director of Human Resources).  The Members of the ESL Board consist of four ESF Board Members and two members from the Committee of School Council Chairmen.  The Members from the ESF Board of Governors are appointed by the Board.  Neither Directors nor Members are paid for their services for ESL.

There are payments made by ESF to ESL for operating matters between ESF and ESL, for example, ESL provides sports coaches to ESF schools at a charge. At the time when the expenses report was produced, the payment of HK$2 million to ESL had not been settled yet and hence it was shown in the report as a sum owed to ESL by ESF. It was simply a matter of the timing of the report.