First Hong Kong Early Childhood Manpower, Pay & Benefits Survey Result Released

The Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development (CHRSD) of the HKBU School of Business partnered with HKBU’s Early Childhood and Elementary Education of the School of Continuing Education announced the results of the first “Hong Kong Early Childhood Education Manpower, Pay and Benefits Survey” on 26 April 2021.

The survey involved a sample of 102 schools, about 10% of the 1,049 kindergartens in Hong Kong, covering the period between 1 September 2019 and 30 August 2020. The survey report contains analyses of the pay and annual compensation of benchmark positions, starting salaries for fresh graduates, employee benefits, teacher turnover, and salary adjustment trends. The data, analysed by the participation of the education scheme, school type, school size, provide meaningful comparisons from various perspectives.

The survey result shows that for schools not participating in the 2019-2020 Kindergarten Education Scheme, the average annual salary for Principal, Senior Teacher, and Class Teacher were HK$643,470, HK$496,187, and HK$339,913 respectively, slightly higher than those of schools having participated in the Scheme (HK$629,999, HK$465,010, and HK$333,708). For Non-profit-making Schools, the average annual salary for the Principal Grade, the Senior Teacher, and the Class Teacher were HK$638,418, HK$478,052, and HK$337,814 respectively, higher than those in Private Independent Schools (HK$591,699, HK$426,691, and HK$303,783).

Sharing his observations on talent development in the early childhood education sector, Prof. Xu Huang, Director of CHRSD and Associate Dean (Research and Postgraduate Studies) of the HKBU School of Business, suggested kindergartens “should raise teachers’ and relevant talents’ pay and benefits in order to retain and attract more talents. We hope the survey result can provide a reference for the early childhood education sector as well as policymakers.” 

The average salary for 2019 and 2020 fresh graduates were HK$21,697 and HK$22,713 respectively. The five most common benefits provided were compassionate leave (provided by 91% of the sampled schools), marriage leave (80%), examination leave (75%), outpatient medical benefits (71%), and hospitalisation (55%). The survey also showed that the overall turnover rate for full-time teachers was 10.6%, with the most important reason for leaving being workload (100% of schools selected this item), followed by family issues (80%) and health reasons (57%). Within the survey period, September 2019 to August 2020, the average salary adjustment rate is 4.8%, with the projected salary adjustment for the period from September 2020 to August 2021 at 2.96%.