Schools cut 126 Primary One classes this year. That is a record. Not "record" like a typhoon record where you shrug and check the signal. Record like the line just fell off the chart. Every one of those classes was a room with desks and a whiteboard and a teacher, and now it is just a room.

Here is the part nobody wants to say plainly: this was booked in already, six years ago, when the birth numbers came in low and everyone in education knew exactly how many Primary One kids Hong Kong would have this September. It is not a surprise. It is a bill arriving on the date printed on it. The surprise, if you can call it that, is watching schools scramble for enrolment, merge classes, and quietly let contracts lapse for a shortfall the government had six years to plan for.