That year, Hong Kong recorded the lowest number of births since data became available in 1960, with 32,500 newborns. In 2023, the city produced 33,200 babies, the second lowest on record.

The figures suggest the preschool sector will face record-low applications in the coming two years, when children born in 2022 start K1 in September 2025.

Analysing the figures, Yan said: “If almost 20 preschools close down [this year], my guess is there could be 30 in the next school year that cease operations.”

He said some schools might also be forced to cut staff numbers.

“As the subsidies kindergartens receive depend on the number of students we admit, fewer students means we may have to retrench teaching staff,” he said.

There were 1,009 kindergartens in Hong Kong in September 2023, down from 1,026 in the same month the previous year.

Among kindergartens, 73 per cent are local institutions that receive government subsidies based on their cohort sizes, 13 per cent are local and wholly privately financed, while the remaining 14 per cent are privately funded non-local preschools.

“From September 2023 to June 2024, a total of 18 kindergartens ceased operations during or at the end of the 2023-24 school year, including one kindergarten that merged with other preschools,” a spokeswoman for the Education Bureau said.

Separately, seven new kindergartens were registered and three were applying for registration, she added.

Yan said the sector was hoping to see a surge in births, given the government’s unprecedented cash incentive of HK$20,000 (US$2,570) for every newborn child and the impact of what was likely to be a baby boom in the Year of the Dragon, which began on February 10 this year.

A popular Chinese zodiac animal, previous Dragon years in 2000 and 2012 saw increased birth rates in the city.

According to the Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, an 8 per cent increase in the number of registered births was recorded in the first five months of 2024, compared with the same period last year.

Yan said the sector had already felt the impact of low births as some institutions that offered “pre-nursery” classes, which accept children at age two and are not compulsory, had recorded low enrolment numbers in recent years.

He said the bigger organisations that funded, sponsored and operated larger preschools might have the capacity to redeploy teachers made redundant within their institutions, but smaller ones would struggle.

“The small school sponsoring bodies and even individual kindergartens may suffer from more pressure to close down,” he said, adding that even privately funded ones would have to bear the brunt of high rents.

Last month, the Education Bureau announced six new estate kindergarten premises – two in North district and one each in Kwun Tong, Yuen Long, Sha Tin and Tung Chung – that preschools could apply for, with the deadline on September 19.

“Non-profit-making kindergartens, especially those with high rental expenses, dilapidated school environments and facilities, or which face a surplus of kindergarten places in the district, are encouraged to apply for the [new] kindergarten premises,” the bureau said.

Yan said he expected those new premises would be popular among the sector, and that kindergartens located in older districts could be prompted to relocate if there was no future potential for increased enrolments on their existing sites.

“Some of the new premises are located near the border and could even admit students living across the border,” he said.