Hong Kong
ESF Opens Three New Kindergartens This Month, Adding 400 Places
West Kowloon, Kornhill, and Sai Sha each get new ESF early-years sites in August 2026, with every campus linked by a guaranteed pathway to a named primary and secondary school.
The English Schools Foundation is opening three new kindergartens in Hong Kong this August, creating 400 first-year places across sites in West Kowloon, Kornhill, and Sai Sha. Each campus comes with an explicit feeder pathway into a named ESF primary and, in most cases, a guaranteed onward place at a named secondary, according to the South China Morning Post.
ESF West Kowloon Kindergarten, located near the Olympic MTR station in Tai Kok Tsui, offers 150 places per year group and feeds into ESF Clearwater Bay School and ESF Kennedy School at primary level. ESF Quarry Bay School Kindergarten, in the Kornhill area of eastern Hong Kong Island, provides 100 places per year and carries a direct admission guarantee to ESF Quarry Bay School, with a subsequent pathway to ESF South Island School. The third new site, a pre-kindergarten programme in Sai Sha, can accommodate up to 90 children and links to ESF Renaissance College in Ma On Shan.
What families are paying
Current ESF kindergartens charge between HK$95,800 and HK$119,700 (approximately USD 12,300 to USD 15,400) for half-day sessions per year, depending on year group and campus. ESF has not announced separate pricing for the new sites, and there is no indication the standard schedule will change. Families who had already applied for K1 entry at existing ESF kindergartens for August 2026 were given the option to amend their preferences to include the new campuses.
Expansion against the demographic tide
The three openings come alongside the closure of two existing pre-school sites. The Tung Chung kindergarten is effectively relocating to Sai Sha, and Abacus International Kindergarten in Sai Kung is due to close at the end of June 2027. An ESF spokesman indicated the foundation would "like to be back in some form one day in the future" in Sai Kung, suggesting the Abacus closure is treated as a pause rather than a permanent exit from the district.
The expansion runs against Hong Kong's broader demographic direction. Record-low birth rates have pushed overall kindergarten enrolment down steadily over the past several years, and the city's population of school-age children has been shrinking. ESF appears to be making the case that demand for English-medium, IB-aligned early childhood education, from a foundation with a strong feeder network into secondary, remains insulated from those wider pressures.
The new campuses are also the visible expression of a policy ESF confirmed earlier this month: that children beginning their education at an ESF kindergarten will now receive a guaranteed primary school place at the attached school, removing one of the main uncertainties that had historically made ESF's early years provision less competitive against fully through-train alternatives. The three new campuses formalise that promise in bricks and mortar.