HK backs down on national education

The Hong Kong government on Saturday backed down on a plan to force school children to take national education classes, after weeks of protests and on the eve of crucial legislative polls.

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying told a press conference that his government would not seek to implement an originally planned 2015 deadline to introduce mandatory national education in all of the city's primary schools.

“The amendment of this policy means that we are giving the authority to the schools. The schools are given the authority to decide when and how they would like to introduce the moral and national education,” Leung told reporters.