Association ostracises Suen over MOI 'chaos'
A school association representing about 200 Chinese-medium schools says it is ostracising Education Secretary Michael Suen Ming-yeung and the Education Bureau following the 'fine-tuning' adjustments to the medium of instruction policy.
The Association of Hong Kong Chinese Middle Schools said it might even disband in protest at the classroom language changes.
The association's 10-strong executive committee resigned last week and released a strongly-worded statement that described the changes as 'chaotic' and 'undermining students' overall growth and the core values of education'.
Committee member Wong May-may, principal of Tack Ching Girls' Secondary School, said members would be carrying out a silent protest over the changes. Association member Sung Lim-ping, principal of Buddhist Hui Yuan College, said member schools' representatives would meet on Monday at Pooi To Middle School to discuss the association's future. 'One of the items on the agenda is whether the association should be disbanded.'
Set up in 1983 by a group of principals from traditional Chinese-medium schools, the association's membership grew from about 20 in its initial years to more than 200. Its mission is to promote the benefits of mother-tongue teaching to counter the growing influence of English-medium schools in Hong Kong. The association, chaired by Pui Ching Middle School principal Yip Chee-tim, reacted strongly following Mr Suen's announcement last Friday that the medium of instruction policy was to be 'fine-tuned'.
Under the new policy, effective from the 2010-11 academic year, schools can teach a class in English if 85 per cent of students in a class are in the top 40 per cent of their age group academically. It will end the strict segregation of schools into Chinese and English streams and allow Chinese-medium schools to set aside a quarter of their lesson time for 'extended learning activities conducted in English'.
Mr Suen said he would contact the association to discuss its concerns. An Education Bureau spokesman said it had contacted the association by e-mail but no meetings had been arranged. 'They refused to meet us. We will try again in the coming days to schedule a meeting between them and Mr Suen.'
While declining to comment on the association's stand, Liu Ah-chuen, chairman of Hong Kong Subsidised Secondary Schools Council, said it was customary for the government to ignore the views of the school sector when setting language policies. 'The government implements policies anyway, despite differences of opinion' he said.
Richard McGeough, language training specialist with Polytechnic University's centre for professional and business English, said the policy would add to teachers' workloads. 'Changing the medium of instruction is not just simply switching from one language to another. It involves something much more complex.'
