About 6,500 teachers quit their jobs at Hong Kong schools in the last academic year, bringing the number to nearly 12,000 in total since 2021, official data shows.

Education Bureau figures provided to lawmakers also showed 17,000 kindergarten and primary school students withdrew from their schools in the past academic year, contrary to beliefs that the impact of a wave of emigration would have eased.

According to the bureau, 6,550 of the 72,374 teachers at subsidised or government-run kindergartens and primary, secondary and special needs schools resigned or retired in the 2021-22 academic year, In the preceding year, 5,270 of the 73,118 teachers left.