LANGUAGE schemes which could eventually make students trilingual were backed yesterday by senior government education advisers.
An expansion of schemes to teach English and Putonghua to primary and secondary students was called for at a Board of Education monthly meeting.
Both the pilot introduction of Putonghua lessons and the employment of expatriate English teachers had proved successful, board members said after the meeting.
No language should take priority, member Ms Sansan Ching Teh-chi said, but children should be given the opportunity to learn different languages.
Experimental teaching of Putonghua, which began in selected primary schools in 1981 and spread to secondary schools in 1984, had shown the lessons were satisfactory and feasible, said Ms Ching, who is also the director of the Hongkong Council of Early Childhood Education and Services.
But teachers are often struggling with the language themselves and need more training to gain confidence and prepare better lessons, she added.
Students' speaking skills were far behind their ability to listen and understand Putonghua, partly because of the teaching but also because they rarely heard the language spoken outside of the classroom.