Our textbooks are politically biased
As a secondary student, I am concerned about the government's decision to provide funding to companies that produce biased national education materials.
First, some of the materials in textbooks are too one-sided. They tend to flatter the Chinese Communist Party.
For example, some materials praise the mainland's one-party rule. Such prejudiced content in textbooks could hardly be beneficial to developing students' critical thinking skills. The China shown in the textbooks is only the tip of the iceberg. It is depicted as too ideal a place.
The texts seek to instill patriotism in us, but patriotism is more than just rejoicing in progress. It is equally important to show the negative sides of our motherland so we can understand it with a more balanced mindset.
How can we learn to relate to the mainland if we are not allowed to know its political system, warts and all?
Tommy Chan Chuen-hin, SKH Tsang Shiu Tim Secondary School
From the Editor
Thank you for your letter, Tommy. It seems the subject of national education has united students across Hong Kong - in that they are against it.
From the day we are born we are subjected to influences that go towards shaping our opinion of the world around us. We can hardly say that Hong Kong is not influenced by Western ideals. Often we don't realise that most of the media with which we interact has a pro-Western bias.
At some point, China needs a voice, too. While we don't want to see history 'rewritten', we need to be open-minded enough to realise that perhaps what we have is not always the absolute truth. As we like to say in journalism: there are two sides to every story.
Susan, editor
