"And yet, surprisingly, Hong Kong, where the median household total income is about 30% of your housing/education allowance alone, has far better overall educational achievement levels than all the major countries that A-scalers came from.
The colonial days where you got paid obscene amounts of money for being white are over folks!"
You're kidding right Paul??? If you truly believe that simply getting 95% to 100% for exams is the be all of education (which is about all you're getting in the local, memory based education system) then I'd respectfully say that you're misguided. A good education (as achieved in our expatriate home countries) is a balanced, lateral thinking based education system with a healthy emphasis on sports and extra curricular activities. An institution that provides that sort of education up here costs a lot.