Admission Olympics: the emerging tutoring market for kindergarten applicants

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents empirical evidence on kindergarten admission preparation services in Hong Kong. Parents increasingly turn to tutoring companies for a range of services, such as social skills training, portfolio editing, mock interviews, and parental consultation. We used qualitative methods to capture the views of parents, teachers, tutors, and early childhood educators (n = 78), to contribute to the lack of literature on this topic. Our findings indicate a market-driven ecosystem of education that favours commercial interests, widens educational inequalities, and is perpetuated by factors such as privatisation of the early childhood sector and misalignment between kindergarten and primary school curricula. Parents consider choice of school, future aspirations, and perceived hierarchies among kindergartens as major considerations for seeking admission preparation services. Heightened admission competition is also present in pre-nurseries and playgroups, calling for increased attention to be paid to the level of competition imposed among children.