No Cantonese, no career? Can Hong Kong do more to help ethnic minority groups?

The Star

26-07-2025

In the second of a two-part series on Hong Kong's ethnic minority groups, Connor Mycroft looks at deep-rooted problems still dragging down these communities despite improvements in education and income levels.
Pakistani Humza Ejaz moved to Hong Kong four months ago, optimistic that he would find a good job and start a new life with his wife and newborn daughter.
Equipped with a master's degree in information technology and about eight years' experience with multinational companies, the 29-year-old was encouraged when hiring agencies in the city assured him he would find a job quickly.
But his inability to speak Cantonese got in the way. He sent more than 50 job applications, only to draw a blank.
Driven to support his new family, he resorted to what many from the city's ethnic minority communities do – he began working as a food delivery courier, working nights to earn about HK$18,000 (US$2,300) a month.
'I thought coming to Hong Kong might uplift my career to the next level,' he said. 'But these past four months have been the biggest downfall of my life.'
If a better job did not come along, he added, he might consider returning to Pakistan.
Despite progress in education and income, Hong Kong's ethnic minority communities remain plagued by problems that prevented earlier generations from climbing the socioeconomic ladder.
NGOs and researchers have said that deep-rooted issues over education, language – proficiency in Cantonese in particular – racial discrimination and integration in society remain unresolved.
John Tse Wing-ling, executive director of the Hong Kong Initiative for Diversity and a long-time advocate for ethnic minority rights, said these communities still had a long way to go.
He highlighted that many earned low incomes from being in low-skilled jobs, such as cleaners and in food preparation and delivery, which official data refers to as 'elementary occupations'.
The proportion of South Asians in such jobs dropped from 30.2 per cent in 2016 to 25.8 per cent in 2021, but was higher than the 18.2 per cent for the whole population.
By industry, men with Nepalese or Pakistani backgrounds were more likely to be working in construction than in any other field in 2021.
'These are dead-end jobs,' Tse said. 'They don't even have a glass ceiling; they just have a ceiling. That's it.'
Tse said that discrimination and unequal outcomes in education and employment remained serious issues to be addressed, particularly in education.
Hong Kong had nearly 620,000 residents from non-Chinese ethnic minority groups, or 8.4 per cent of the population, according to the 2021 census.
Filipinos and Indonesians, mainly foreign domestic helpers, made up about half, while Hongkongers of Indian, Pakistani and Nepalese descent made up most of the rest. Others, domestic helpers excluded, included Indonesians, Thais and Filipinos.
Non-Indian South Asians continued to underperform against their peers in terms of education, with only 25.1 per cent of Pakistanis and 22.2 per cent of Nepalis having attending post-secondary education as of 2021, compared with 34.6 per cent for the whole population, according to the census.
Only about 10 per cent of students from ethnic minority groups who studied the local curriculum secured a place in a government-funded public university between 2020 and 2024, according to official data.
The figure was well below about one in four Chinese-speaking students who secured places.
In a recent survey of 171 people from ethnic minority groups, Tse's organisation asked respondents to rate a number of issues that needed attention. 'Education reform for inclusion' came out on top.
Part of the problem lay in what he described as 'de facto segregation' in schools.
Hong Kong used to have 'designated schools' that took in mainly non-Chinese speaking students. Although the term was abolished by the Education Bureau in 2013, some schools still have a large concentration of students from ethnic minority groups.
During the 2022-23 school year, 28 per cent of non-Chinese-speaking primary pupils and 21 per cent of secondary students attended schools where more than four-fifths of their classmates were of a similar ethnic background, according to a report by the Legislative Council Secretariat.
'They got rid of the term designated schools, but in practice, they're still there,' Tse said.
Being in a school with a high concentration of students from ethnic minority backgrounds was not conducive to learning Cantonese, which was needed for jobs, and it did not help the pupils integrate fully into society either, he said.
He said he hoped Hong Kong would move away from its 'monolingual' Cantonese approach and adopt a more multicultural one that valued members of the ethnic minority communities for their capabilities, including the languages they could speak.
Others have also taken issue with the way Chinese is taught to ethnic minority students.
The Education Bureau released a teaching framework a decade ago, but critics said it lacked a proper curriculum and teachers were often not equipped to teach Cantonese as a second language.
'I think it's pretty sad that we're still talking about how to give ethnic minorities the same opportunity to learn the language,' said Shalini Mahtani, the CEO and founder of the Zubin Foundation, which supports and provides opportunities to those from minority groups.
What Hong Kong lacked, she added, was a proper pedagogy – detailing teaching methods, curriculum and assessments – to teach Cantonese as a second language.
In a reply to the Post, the bureau said that setting a standardised Chinese-language curriculum for non-Chinese speakers 'may not be most beneficial for their future'.
Instead, the government provided a range of measures to cater to the needs of those students, including through its second-language framework online resources it had developed.
The bureau said it had been encouraging parents of non-Chinese speaking students to enrol their children in schools that could provide an 'immersive Chinese language environment'.
It also said that while Hong Kong's education system provided non-Chinese speaking students with equal opportunities to attend public sector schools, their higher concentration in some schools could be the result of location or the parents' preference. More government help schemes
A bone of contention among NGOs is that the Census and Statistics Department did not publish a breakdown of ethnic minority residents living in poverty in the 2021 census.
In 2016, the poverty rate among South Asians before intervention was 25.7 per cent, and among Pakistanis, it was 56.5 per cent. The overall rate for the general population was 19.9 per cent.
The department told the Post there were limitations in the 'poverty line' analytical framework, which used household income as the sole indicator of poverty.
'The approach does not take into account many other factors that also affect poverty, such as assets, composition of households, social welfare and services, and taxes,' it said.
It added that the government now used a 'strategy of targeted poverty alleviation to direct resources to those most in need'.
The government has also taken steps to address inequities in recent years, including through a racial diversity employment scheme overseen by the Labour Department and introducing ethnic minority care teams.
The department started the programme in 2020 in collaboration with NGOs to provide job-matching help to ethnic minority jobseekers.
It adopts a case management approach through partnered NGOs that provide pre-employment counselling, job matching and post-placement support.
As of June 2025, the programme has offered support for 2,099 ethnic minority cases, with 726 job placements.
Last July, the government introduced care teams for ethnic minority groups, working with district offices and community care teams in the city's 18 districts.
Pakistani Hongkonger Ahmed Ahsan, 28, has been working for the care teams since they started a year ago.
He and his team members visit homes and host community programmes on various issues, including raising awareness about domestic violence.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, he said he was inspired to become a social worker after attending secondary school in the UK, where he said he did not feel stigmatised due to his background and it appeared that people of different backgrounds were better integrated.
He recalled being called racial slurs while growing up in Hong Kong, and he also faced difficulties finding work.
From the care team's visits, he said people from ethnic minority groups still did not know how to get essential information on public services for housing, welfare and employment. Many also felt isolated and stigmatised, he added.
'When we visit them, we share a similar culture and language, and it helps to give them a sense of comfort and familiarity,' he said. Dream comes true, but reality bites
But even those who break through by mastering Cantonese, achieving a good education and landing a job may have to confront a new set of challenges when they enter the workforce.
A nurse of South Asian descent in her twenties told the Post that she faced racial discrimination for the first time when she started working for the Hospital Authority, which oversees all public healthcare institutions in the city.
Requesting not to be named, she said she was born and educated in the city and did not experience any mistreatment, even at secondary school, where she was the only student of her race.
She always felt accepted, and if she struggled with Chinese lessons, her classmates always helped, she said. She worked hard to master Cantonese.
She said her father did not complete primary school himself, but deliberately enrolled her at a school where most students were Chinese Hongkongers, saying it would help her secure a good future.
She went on to do nursing at university and obtained her licence. 'I was very excited because this was a childhood dream of mine,' she said.
Landing a job with the authority changed her positive view of interracial relationships in Hong Kong, and it was the first time she realised that 'things can be very difficult for us'.
Like colleagues of similar minority backgrounds, she felt they were reprimanded more severely for minor workplace mistakes than their ethnic Chinese colleagues.
Senior ethnic Chinese colleagues appeared to give career advice more readily to younger staff from the same backgrounds, while she felt she had to navigate things on her own. It sometimes left her feeling disrespected.
She said she did not raise these issues with her superiors because it would be hard to provide proof of being treated differently or unfairly.
'I passed my exams, I got my licence, but that was not enough for my colleagues to treat me with respect,' she said.
'Some day there might be a change when there are enough of us in the medical field, and then maybe ... they will start treating us like everybody else.' 'Raise awareness of discrimination'
In a reply to the Post, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, which oversees matters related to discrimination, said the government and the Equal Opportunities Commission continued to work towards eliminating racial discrimination and promoting equal opportunities for people of diverse races.
It said it could not comment on specific cases 'in the absence of specific facts', but encouraged those who faced discrimination in the workplace, educational institutions, or other areas to seek help from the commission.
In a survey of nearly 600 ethnic minority workers released last year by Lingnan University and Baptist University, respondents reported an average of 2.56 instances of being treated disrespectfully at the workplace over a year because of their race.
They also reported an average of 2.63 instances where they were assumed to have less capacity and 2.53 instances of being neglected in the workplace.
More than three-fifths reported feeling that they were paid less than their Chinese or Caucasian counterparts of similar experience levels.
Nearly three-fifths believed their difficulties at work could be attributed to their being from an ethnic minority group.
Associate Professor Lisa Leung Yuk-ming of Lingnan University's cultural studies department, who led the research, said that such perceptions could add an extra layer to the societal exclusion ethnic minority groups already experienced.
During interviews she conducted, ethnic minority workers from across all sectors shared a similar experience of facing racial discrimination, yet had not reported such treatment for fear of appearing 'troublesome'.
Introducing laws was not enough to tackle such situations, she said, noting that the Race Discrimination Ordinance was enacted nearly two decades ago.
'It really is about awareness-raising and public education,' she added.
Leung said she was hopeful for the future, noting the rising number of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds who were finding success and speaking out.
But she said there was a long way to go in terms of building empathy among Hong Kong's majority ethnic Chinese population.
'Stereotypes die hard, so it will just take time until we can see a removal ... of racially aggressive behaviour,' she said. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST