A former kindergarten administrator at Hong Kong’s biggest international school group has been sentenced to 25 months in jail for accepting more than HK$640,000 (US$81,700) in bribes from 13 parents and a middleman to secure places by tampering with the admissions system.
Fatima Rumjahn, 56, earlier admitted to accepting bribes ranging from HK$20,000 to HK$200,000 from parents eager to secure enrolment for their children at the English Schools Foundation’s (ESF) Wu Kai Sha International Kindergarten.
At Monday’s sentencing, Deputy District Judge Amy Chan Wai-mun said Rumjahn’s dishonest actions and abuse of power spanned three academic years and affected students who were originally entitled to enrolment during that period.
“The defendant took advantage of the parents’ wish to provide better education for their children and proactively offered to help them jump the queue,” she said.
Had ESF not noticed her misconduct and reported the case, Rumjahn would not have stopped at merely obtaining money from the parents involved, Chan added.
“Her behaviour completely shows her greed,” she said.
The court ordered Rumjahn to pay the amount she collected in bribes – HK$640,000 – to ESF as compensation within three years.
During her employment at the school between 2018 and 2021, she promised the parents that she would move their children up the waiting list or arrange interviews for late applicants, in exchange for the bribes.
In 2022, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) laid charges against Rumjahn, as well as some of the parents.
Later, Rumjahn pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy by an agent to accept an advantage and four counts of an agent accepting an advantage.
In the 2024 trial, she served as a witness against the 14 defendants as part of a plea deal with the prosecution. Her testimony led to the conviction of all 14 defendants at the end of the trial.
Last month, Judge Chan handed down sentences ranging from eight to 14 months’ imprisonment for the defendants, including the parents, aged 35 to 46, and a 48-year-old businessman who bribed Rumjahn in exchange for an interview for his business partner’s daughter.
In mitigation, some parents argued that they did not proactively offer the bribes to Rumjahn, but that the former administrator’s greed made her the main culprit in the case.
Chan agreed with the defence that Rumjahn should bear the heaviest liability among all defendants, given the integral role she played in the crime.
The judge stressed that Hong Kong had no tolerance for corruption, and Rumjahn’s acts “severely undermined the fair competition system in society”.
But Chan noted that Rumjahn did provide significant help to the prosecution to secure the other defendants’ convictions. The judge gave Rumjahn a 50 per cent discount on her sentence, which was initially set at four years and two months for the nine charges.
The court earlier heard that Rumjahn had access to the school’s admission system to change an applicant’s status from the ordinary category to priority status.
Priority status in ESF admissions is usually given to children whose parents are members of staff or alumni, or who have siblings who are already students. It is also granted if the applying family has bought a HK$500,000 bond.
Applicants with foreign passports have also been considered for priority status in recent years.
The children involved in the case did not fit any of these criteria, with some ranking between 51st and 212th on the waiting list. Rumjahn had altered their status in the system to help them secure an interview opportunity.
In the case of one late application by a male pupil to the kindergarden, Rumjahn told the parent that she “needed to be paid” for arranging an interview, which was supposedly impossible for late applicants.
The pupil eventually received an interview invitation after Rumjahn changed the parent’s status to “alumni”.
The judge earlier slammed the 14 defendants for “depriving others of a fair chance” to attend the school, even though their motives came from a place where they had high expectations for their children.