Using the mother tongue as an instrument of learning has been controversial since the publication of the Llewellyn Report in 1982, in which bilingual education was advocated but rejected by the educational community because it threatened to reduce the amount of English teaching time in secondary schools.
The dilemma among educators, parents, and the public has been the instrumental value of the dominant language - English, and the integrative value of Chinese for most of the population.
The language issue would not have emerged if the education system had remained elitist and selective with only three per cent of students having access to a university education.
In 1978, nine-year compulsory education was introduced. This policy aimed at producing a large amount of semi-educated manpower for a changing economy.
However, the implications of such a change were not fully appreciated by policy makers.
Learning through a second language proved less difficult to those born into supportive families, but the majority found school learning irrelevant and unsuitable.
A compromise solution was 'segregation' - dividing those who were able to benefit from an English education and those who were not. The 'one country, two systems' mode of thinking prevailed and found expression in an Education Commission Report in 1990.