Hong Kong parents who employ Filipino domestic workers are reported to be enlisting the help of their employees in order to have their children admitted to the territory's Catholic schools, writes Francis Wong.

A baptism certificate is an important requirement for winning one of the highly prized places, but children of non-Catholic families must normally attend Sunday school for a year before they can be baptised. Some families have therefore been travelling to the Philippines with their domestic workers to have their children baptised there. Fr John B. Kwan, a parish priest, told the Hong Kong diocesan newspaper about the trend, while a Filipino priest in Hong Kong, Fr Madias Tambot, said several Filipino domestic workers had told him they had been asked to help out their employers by making the journey with them. He did not say whether there had been any coercion exercised or financial inducements offered, but said that the domestic workers who had spoken to him were not happy about the practice.

In the Philippines, priests are not necessarily aware of the hidden motive for the baptism, and many are prepared to receive a visiting child into the Church.

Hong Kong, which has a population of 7 million, is home to about 240,000 non-Filipino Catholics and 130,000 Filipino Catholics. There are 317 Catholic schools in the diocese of Hong Kong.