Hong Kong Expats Teach Kids at Home Amid School Shortage

And now, with her son and two daughters in three different places, Underhill and her husband, a pilot at FedEx Corp., have decided to return to the U.S. “partly as a result of the education situation here,” she said.

Hong Kong’s worsening shortage of spaces in its 49 international schools is so critical companies are “seriously concerned” employees will refuse to move there, according to an April 1 report by International School Consultancy Group, a Faringdon, U.K.-based research company.

“We have clients that say, ’I’m not going to move unless they get into a school,’” said Anne Murphy, a director at ITS Education Services Ltd. in Hong Kong, which charges as much as HK$39,500 ($5,096) to guide families through the application process. Parents sometimes approach ITS even before their children are born, she said.

The school shortage could put “the reputation and competitiveness of Hong Kong” at risk, according to a 2012 report commissioned by the city’s Education Bureau.

With a population of about 7.2 million, the city issued 28,380 general work visas last year, up 35 percent from 2009. The expat population is expanding along with local families’desire for a Western-style education, the 2012 study said.