As the government plans to fine-tune the current policy on medium of instruction in secondary schools, the chairman of the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research, Michael Tien Puk-sun, asked: 'Where have those people who previously supported mother-tongue teaching gone?' This says a lot about the sea change in public attitudes towards the language policy since the 1990s.
During my short spell as a legislator, from 1995 to 1997, I moved a motion to support mother-tongue education in schools, which received cross-party support. The reason was simple: pedagogically, it was widely accepted that students could learn more effectively using the language they were best at.
Until the 1990s, schools were free to choose their language of instruction. Unfortunately many 'Anglo-Chinese' schools only taught in mixed code, using English textbooks. Worst still, some teachers were not fluent in English, and students who were having difficulty learning non-language subjects in a foreign language became even weaker.
As an International Panel commissioned by the government to review Hong Kong's education system reported in 1981, the medium of instruction issue was so controversial that it generated more heat than light. While supporting mother tongue as the most effective medium for teaching and learning, it also recognised that most parents would prefer English-medium education for their children, mainly for economic rather than educational reasons.
Language has often become a political issue for post-colonial societies seeking to restore indigenous identity by pushing aside the former language of domination. Fortunately, Hong Kong does not need to go through that, as the Basic Law clearly prescribes a bilingual policy. Still, the enforcement of mother-tongue education after 1997 has caused political ripples, with some suspecting the government of trying to please Beijing.
There is no need to play up politics, viewing the mother-tongue policy as either destroying Hong Kong's competitiveness or, reversely, a bastion of national identity. Hong Kong students should be brought up in a bilingual environment, so all schools should strive to teach in both English and Chinese, though in varied combinations depending on the subjects and levels, and the language competencies of students and teachers.
The strong resentment among schools to the new policy has resulted from its labelling effect by designating English-medium and Chinese-medium schools. Ideally, both could compete for good students and excel in different ways, but only if parents are indifferent to which type of school is best for their children and accept that it is the quality, rather than the language, of teaching that matters.