Hong Kong VTC courses touted as short cut to residency for babies of mainland mothers

AI Summary

Agencies in mainland China are promoting Hong Kong Vocational Training Council courses to pregnant women as a low-cost route to residency or passports for their newborns. They claim Hong Kong status could improve children's access to mainland universities and future civil-service jobs, while critics question the practice.

Agencies are promoting Vocational Training Council (VTC) courses to pregnant women in mainland China, touting packages cheaper than HK$100,000 (US$12,600) including commission as the lowest-cost route for the women to secure Hong Kong passports for their newborns, the South China Morning Post has found. The path would enable their children to get into top-tier mainland universities more easily and could even secure them a job as a civil servant in the future, the agencies claimed. But critics...