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My Take | Carrie Lam walking a tightrope on national education
A well-designed history programme may just be what is needed to balance between patriotic education and opposition ideology
Reading Time:2 minutes
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Alex Loin Toronto
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor knows where the political landmines are. And one of the biggest has been Beijing’s agenda for national education in Hong Kong.
Her predecessor, Leung Chun-ying, stepped on that one the first month he took office as chief executive in 2012. Lam is determined not to make the same mistake.
This means, I gather, saying all the right things about patriotism, national identity and our proud Chinese heritage for her audience in Beijing without introducing radical changes within the local education system.
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Her administration has been busy pushing for expanded teaching on the Basic Law and making Chinese history a mandatory subject throughout secondary school. These may be enough to suspend, or at least, postpone the introduction of full-fledged national education in our schools. It’s hard to fault the teaching of civic education, of which the city’s constitution is indubitably a part. And Chinese history had been a mandatory subject, even during colonial times, until more recent curriculum changes.
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So, to those in the opposition who have been claiming her administration is trying to reintroduce national education through the back door, I prefer to give Lam the benefit of the doubt.
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