Higher Education Closed to Filipinos in Hong Kong

• Tweet
• Pin It

Heidi Ricohermoso grew up in the shadows of Hong Kong’s towering cityscape and, like the rest of her peers, often gazed upwards and dreamed of success. But getting there meant getting into college, and for Ricohermoso, the child of Filipino immigrants, that meant passing a series of state-administered exams.

“I wasn’t very happy to see my HKCEE results,” said Ricohermoso, referring to the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination, a test administered to students in the eleventh grade as a prerequisite for the last two years of secondary school (high school). Students then must pass an exit exam to graduate from high school and apply to colleges and universities.

With Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the tests have placed renewed emphasis on Chinese language proficiency.

“I thought I had to give up on getting a college education,” said Ricohermoso. That frustration eventually forced Ricohermoso and her mother to leave the country for the United States, where the soft-spoken 20-year-old is now enrolled at Portland Community College and studying to become a Certified Nurse Assistant.

“Everyone in our community should be able to share in the fruits of our economic development,” said Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in June, during an inaugural address, marred by protests over the city’s growing wealth gap. For Ricohermoso, such words ring hollow.

Continue reading at New Media America