Chinese is Hong Kong's language. Yet so entrenched is the attitude that teaching in English is better that it required Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa to promote mother-tongue teaching. Being educated in your native language must be easier, the thinking goes.
How ironic, then, that Mr Tung's push for mother-tongue teaching has become an obstacle to major reform of the local education system that aims to ease the exam burden on students and encourage enjoyment from learning.
In September, 1998, most secondary schools in Hong Kong were forced to switch to Chinese teaching. Only 114 schools were granted exemptions to teach in English.
A panel under the Board of Education then suggested that mother-tongue education should be further expanded after 2001. It wants to tighten the rules governing which schools can teach in English, so that those wishing to do so must prove they have enough capable teachers. Teachers working in English schools would be required to take a benchmark test to judge their English proficiency. Schools which did not have enough teachers with a pass grade would then be asked to switch to Chinese teaching.
This proposal was originally scheduled to be released later this month. But it has now been delayed by new developments and proposals that have emerged from a comprehensive review of the local education process.
Preliminary plans drafted by the Education Commission, the highest official think-tank on education, call for either a nine-year or 11-year 'through train' of foundation education in one continuous stage.
