Time to retire the native English teacher scheme
Vaughan Rapatahana says most don't need to master the language
Let's get real about the native-speaking English teacher (NET) scheme - it is a white elephant and has been from day one. I question its rationale, benefits and viability, particularly when considering the quite staggering HK$710 million annual costs involved; the scheme has been bleeding taxpayer money for over 15 years.
There has never been any cogent and consistent reasoning for the scheme, other than a knee-jerk reaction back in 1998 as a sop to angry, dismayed parents and students when Chinese language was unilaterally introduced as a medium of instruction.
The scheme divides so-called "native English speakers" (almost all of whom are foreign-born and many of whom are monolingual) from local teachers of English, who have the requisite cultural and linguistic skills to connect more easily with most students.
Most Hongkongers don't really want to internalise the language and in many cases cannot afford the training necessary for proficiency. English proficiency has always been largely accessible to only a wealthy elite. As has been noted, English is like ginseng for most Hong Kong residents: it tastes bad, but they suffer it because they feel they must somehow have it to "succeed". In reality, few of them actually use the language at home or anywhere else.
We must ask why so many Hongkongers feel they have to expend so much energy chasing English-language acquisition, fighting to enrol in schools that use English as its medium of instruction and in so-called elite institutions such as Harrow School and Malvern College.
There is, in many cases, an element of snobbery: in their mindsets, having English, or some semblance of it, sets Hong Kong apart from the mainland, whose students ironically have better English. But this is not the prime reason behind the drive towards mastery of "standardised" English, and indeed behind the entire NET system. The problem is, parents and students labour under the misguided belief - cleverly instigated since colonial times - that they "need" the English language.