Hong Kong's DSS schools take 170 pupils on student visas as 48 join expansion pilot

Hong Kong's Education Bureau said on 21 October 2026 that 170 non-local pupils holding student visas are enrolled at Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools this year, 13 per cent more than a year earlier, in the first term of a pilot that lets the semi-private schools add places for them.

Deputy Secretary for Education Ida Lee wrote in a bureau column that 48 DSS schools, more than half the sector, have been approved to join the scheme. The 170 figure comes from the September headcount. The pupils pay their own way, as students on visas receive no DSS subsidy.

Seven DSS schools took in overseas pupils for a second straight year, and seven more did so for the first time this year. The bureau said the pupils come from Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Europe and the United States.

"As a pilot scheme being implemented in a small-step approach, it has had a good start," Ms Lee wrote.

The scheme was announced in the 2025 Policy Address. When the bureau invited applications in December 2025, The Standard reported that schools could add classes or enlarge them, raise the share of pupils on non-local curricula to 49 per cent, and must reserve at least half of any boarding places for non-local students on visas. Non-local pupils do not count towards that curriculum cap, which the bureau said protects local families. Ms Lee said then that 26 of the 57 DSS secondary schools offered international curricula.

Boarding is the next step. The bureau said it would help the Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council write a code of practice for student hostels, with standards for accommodation, hygiene, safety and wardens, and set up a committee to check that operators follow it. The council said in March that it wanted to inspect dormitories run by outside operators and publish a list of approved providers, The Standard reported.

The bureau and the council took delegations to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia in the first half of 2026. Ms Lee said parents there liked the choice of curricula, the biliterate and trilingual classrooms, the short flights from South-east Asia and the city's safety.

DSS schools receive government subsidy but set their own fees, and the bureau tells families to check each school's charges. Yearly fees at the 17 international schools Prospectus lists in Hong Kong run between US$11,600 and US$53,100. The English Schools Foundation's secondary schools, such as Island School, charge US$22,200 to US$24,000. Fourteen of the 17 teach the IB, and they are listed on our Hong Kong IB schools page.