MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): Deputy President, over 10 000 people were arrested during the “black-clad violence” and more than 4 000 of them were secondary or university students. The situation was shocking and worrying. Many believe this is caused by the problematic subject of Liberal Studies (“LS”).
The LS subject is one of the core senior secondary subjects, and the original intent is to develop students’ analytical skills and vision as well as enhance their understanding of Hong Kong, the country and the world. In order to enable the schools to teach in accordance with the social development and teaching conditions, the Education Bureau (“EDB”) had not established any standards for teaching materials or provided any textbooks at the very beginning, and the teaching content was drawn up by schools and teachers. In fact, the LS subject has been subject to criticisms since its introduction. The curriculum is vague and students are under great pressure to learn. Given that political issues have become a heated topic in the community in recent years, the LS subject has also become politicized. Both the teaching content and examination questions are related to political issues, and some misbehaving teachers have even instilled into students the idea of “black-clad violence”. The community finally sees clearly the various shortcomings of LS.
While I believe most LS subject teachers are professional and impartial, it is a proven fact that many teachers with political stances have led students to follow their political ideologies when teaching. The media had exposed time and again that teachers violated their professional conduct in the past. For instance, some teachers produced extremely biased teaching materials that advocated students’ participation in civil disobedience, class boycotts and occupation, and praised students for what they did during the Occupy Central movement. Worse still, they vilified the Mainland and Hong Kong governments in a biased manner. Furthermore, during the “black-clad violence” the year before last, it was also revealed that some people who spread the message of hatred against the Police and China and supported “black-clad violence” were important figures in the LS system. This was really shocking!
These teachers politically “brainwashed” the students to achieve their political goals. I was particularly saddened to see secondary students take to the streets wearing school uniforms. Now that the community has seen clearly the shortcomings of the LS subject, a reform should thus be carried out as soon as possible. EDB recently published a consultation document on optimizing the LS subject and proposed a number of changes, such as reorganizing the curriculum content; changing it from six modules to three themes; reducing the total lesson time from 250 hours to around 130 to 150 hours, and marking the public examinations as “attained” and “not attained” to reduce the pressure on students. The LS subject is currently a compulsory subject and the result will affect whether a student can enter universities. Given that the Independent Enquiry Study in the LS subject is similar to the research projects of universities, it is rather difficult for secondary students. It will thus be removed after the reform.
Therefore, this reform will greatly reduce the pressure of students in learning, which is good for students and their parents. The new LS subject will have specific learning focus and textbooks. According to the existing textbook review mechanism, the new LS textbooks will also be submitted for review. As a matter of fact, the establishment of learning focus can prevent teachers with political inclination from acting arbitrarily, whereas the submission of textbooks for review can prevent the existence of biased teaching materials. I think this is the right direction and can address the major shortcoming.
As the new LS subject contains the elements of national education, some considered it a disguised form of national education and strongly opposed it. What is wrong with national education? As pointed out by EDB, one of the targets of the curriculum is to cultivate students’ quality as a member of the country and their sense of national identity. The curriculum allows students to have a foothold in Hong Kong and understand the future development of the country. This has always been the objective of primary and secondary education and is nothing new. EDB also pointed out that the new subject allows discussion of the merits of certain things as long as they are based on facts and rational analysis. It is actually basic knowledge, and only natural, for students to understand their own country and its history. Western countries also do so and there is no opposition at all.
The six modules of the LS subject include “Modern China”, which also covers national education. It is just that we are not sure how the teachers have taught and what has been instilled in students such that the LS subject has developed to the present stage. Moreover, the new curriculum recommends that students should join study tours to the Mainland. I very much support this recommendation, and agree that it is best for students to pay more visits to big cities and even inland cities. Allowing the students to gain first-hand experience is better than saying a thousand words. After gaining first-hand experience and understanding the genuine situation of the country, students will not be deceived by others anymore. I think the duration of the visits should not be too short and multiple visits can be arranged for students so as to allow sufficient time for exchanges.
Deputy President, although some people think that the reform of the LS subject is not comprehensive, e.g. it has not yet been changed to a non-compulsory subject, I believe EDB led by the Secretary for Education has, in carrying out this reform, strived to balance the interests of various parties, which is worthy of commendation. Nevertheless, teachers still enjoy a lot of freedom under the new system. I hope teachers will understand that if they exert a bad influence on students, especially instilling in them the concepts that they do not need to abide by the law or can decide on their own what constitutes a draconian law, the students are more prone to break the law and go astray, thereby plunging their families into misery. In that case, such teachers will have committed heinous crimes. Hence, I hope that EDB will step up supervision to avoid students from being led astray by such teachers. In this way, the Secretary for Education would really do us a great service. Thank you, Deputy President.