YK Pao School Brings Its Bilingual Education Model to Kowloon This September

YK Pao School Hong Kong opens next month at a temporary campus in Yau Tong, Kowloon East, with a permanent facility at 4 Rose Street, Kowloon Tong, due for completion in 2028. The school will begin with four classes across Primary 1, Primary 2, and Primary 3, capping each at 25 pupils and targeting an initial enrolment of around 100 children, according to The Standard.

A Shanghai model, transplanted to Hong Kong

The school is operated by the YK Pao Education Foundation, a not-for-profit established by Professor Anna Pao Sohmen, eldest daughter of Hong Kong shipping magnate Sir YK Pao. The foundation's first school opened in Shanghai in 2007 and has since built a reputation for treating English and Chinese as two co-equal first languages rather than placing one in a dominant role. That bilingual model now arrives in the city where the Pao family made its fortune.

The curriculum follows the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme and, as the school expands by year group, the Middle Years Programme. Annual tuition is set at HK$220,000 for the 2026/27 academic year, pending approval from the Education Bureau. That places the school broadly in line with Hong Kong's mid-tier international operators, below the fees of the city's premium independents but above the subsidised cost of English Schools Foundation provision.

Who the school is built for

The foundation has been direct about its target market: local Hong Kong families who want strong Chinese language development alongside an internationally recognised qualification pathway, as well as non-local families seeking the same. That dual pitch marks a growing shift in Hong Kong's international school sector. Several new entrants in the past two years have explicitly moved away from the expat-only positioning that once defined the market, seeking enrolment from the larger and faster-growing pool of affluent local families.

The permanent campus at 4 Rose Street is expected to provide more than 8,000 square metres of teaching and open space once extensive redevelopment is complete. The foundation says staff recruitment is complete and the school will grow by one year group at a time, eventually extending through Year 9 once the IB Middle Years Programme is fully in place. For students wishing to continue to the IB Diploma, the foundation points to YK Pao School's Songjiang campus in Shanghai.

The opening adds a distinctive note to Hong Kong's already busy start to the 2026/27 academic year, which has seen new sixth-form centres from Kellett School and Nord Anglia International School, new kindergartens from the English Schools Foundation, and the debut of NLCS Hong Kong, all within recent weeks. YK Pao School's launch stands apart: a not-for-profit with no corporate parent, a bilingual model tested across two decades in Shanghai, and an explicit mandate to serve local families at least as much as the expatriate community.