Special-education enrolment is surging, but school support has not kept pace with identification

The number of students with special educational needs in Hong Kong's public ordinary primary and secondary schools has risen by almost 27 percentage points over six years, to more than 71,000; among them, secondary students with mental illness have grown from 790 to 1,790, a 1.4-fold increase. Many local parents and teachers report that in recent years parents have become markedly more willing to have their children assessed, as society grows more open about mental health and learning differences — but schools' identification, follow-up and use of resources have not kept pace with the number identified.

The Education Bureau supports students with special educational needs in ordinary schools through a recurrent-plus-additional funding model, with one coordinating officer per school; yet the places and quotas for cross-professional intervention (educational psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers) are shared across different agencies, leaving schools chronically short-staffed for case management, home-school communication and continuity of support. This supply-demand gap places immense pressure on some schools that take the bulk of students with special educational needs, widens the gap in support levels between mainstream schools, and leaves the local early-intervention network for student mental health and learning differences unmatched to the speed of identification.