Equitable and quality educational opportunities for Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities: the challenges to achieve SDG4

Current educational development discourse is characterized by the Sustainable Development Goal Four (SDG4) that aims to “ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all”. This paper explores the challenges of achieving SDG4 for Hong Kong in regard to ensuring equitable and quality educational opportunities for its ethnic minority young people, with a particular focus on equality in educational outcomes. The paper argues that school failure of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong is an educational outcome issue which poses significant challenges for Hong Kong to achieve SDG4. In addition to the Chinese language factor, there are many other interrelated factors at students’ individual, family, school and community level contributing to ethnic minority students’ school failure in Hong Kong. Unless all of them are addressed, it will be hard to achieve any marked success against school failure. Above all, an education policy is needed that recognizes and responds to cultural diversity to support Hong Kong’s ethnic minority students. © 2017, Australian Curriculum Studies Association.