With the government 'fine-tuning' its education policy, English is set to get a boost as the teaching medium in the secondary sector, with some Chinese-medium schools expected to relax their long-cherished mother-tongue tradition in favour of a mixed approach.
The fine-tuning policy will end strict segregation of schools into Chinese and English-medium streams, and give more flexibility to schools to set their own language policies. Starting with Form One next academic year, schools can teach a class in English if 85 per cent of pupils in the class are in the top 40 per cent of their age group academically.
Half of the eight traditionally Chinese-medium schools contacted by the South China Morning Post said they would offer science and some other subjects in English, while retaining mother-tongue teaching for humanities. The remaining four schools said they would stick mostly to mother-tongue teaching.
Three schools forced in 1998 to switch to teaching in Chinese said they would greatly boost teaching in English next September, when fine-tuning is due to take effect.
The Education Bureau said earlier that all secondary schools had submitted fine-tuning proposals for vetting. With the exception of a few schools, whose arrangements failed to comply with the rules and needed amendments, most proposals were satisfactory and would be made public next month.
The Association of Hong Kong Chinese Middle Schools says there are about 50 schools that have always taught in Chinese, and others that switched to Chinese before the mother-tongue policy came in.