University students add voice to national education protest
Student union urges class boycott next week as campaign against national education programme widens and enters second week
University student leaders are organising a citywide class boycott on Tuesday to push for national education to be scrapped, taking opposition up a notch.
The battle over the subject has spread from primary schools to the government headquarters in Admiralty, and is now set to reach university campuses.
Pledges from officials to leave the door open for discussion have failed to prevent protest from escalating. The sudden appearance of a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue at the Admiralty sit-in on Tuesday night revived memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, raising concerns among national education opponents their core message might be hijacked.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students, an alliance of university student unions, urged students to boycott classes on September 11, a day after most universities start the new semester. The campaign will kick off with a rally at Chinese University.
"I hope this will be a city-wide student campaign," said federation secretary general Samuel Li Shing-hong, who hopes several thousand students take part.
Federation spokesman Liu Sze-ming said 1,000 students were expected to join the boycott.
"The government has ignored public concerns and gone to great lengths pushing for the subject. Nothing can better prove the political motives behind it," the federation said in a statement yesterday. "We as university students understand our responsibilities, which is why we are uniting now to oppose it."