I think the new medium-of-instruction policy will worsen the labelling effect on students. Some parents will still push their children to study at a class using English. So for those who remain at schools teaching in Chinese, things will get much worse.
Parents and students are always striving to study at English medium-of-instruction schools. Most of the parents think these schools are prestigious and they tend to regard schools that teach in Chinese as inferior. But when parents choose a school for their children, they should take into account their ability. I think schools should put students with good and poor English together to study. This would remove the labelling effect.
As a father of a pupil at secondary school, I prefer to choose a school that fits the ability of my child. I would choose the school according to the ability of my daughter. I would not force my daughter to study at a school that teaches in English.
It is not a good policy to separate schools like this. The mother-tongue policy is a failure in many respects. Students who are forced to study in English may find it difficult because they do not have the language ability, and they find it hard to catch up. On the other hand, those pupils at Chinese-language schools will lose the opportunity to learn English, which will lead to a decline in English proficiency.
Yet despite this, the education minister, Michael Suen Ming-yeung, says the government will earmark HK$980 million in the next five years to implement 'fine-tuning' measures.
I also think the new medium-of-instruction policy will increase the workload of teachers, as they may have to prepare teaching materials in both languages. Also, now is not the right time to implement the medium-of-instruction policy, as the new academic structure for senior secondary education will be implemented this year. These policies are new to pupils, schools and parents. I fear there will be chaos.