Government must ensure equal opportunities for all in our schools

The government has taken a crucial step to end its shameful de facto school segregation for students of ethnic minorities. For the first time, new support courses for teaching Chinese as a second language will be set up to help such students integrate into mainstream Chinese-language classes.

If sustained and expanded, such courses will enable ethnic minority students to join mainstream government and other publicly funded schools. Existing schools for ethnic minorities, many of which are of comparable quality to mainstream local-Chinese schools, can also boost their Chinese-language teaching, whose lower standards have been a hindrance to their graduates competing for university admission and jobs.

Hong Kong never had an official racial segregation policy. But segregation came about as a result of decades of benign neglect.

Children of non-Chinese-speaking families were traditionally encouraged to join schools under the English Schools Foundation. But such families tended to be rich, well-connected and come mostly from English-speaking and European countries. Those from South Asia, many of them having lived here for generations, tend to belong to lower-income brackets. It's their children who are sent to designated government-subsided schools for ethnic minorities.

Many speak perfect Cantonese. But because their schooling in Chinese is usually less advanced than at mainstream local schools, their written Chinese has become an enormous disadvantage. That makes joining the civil service virtually impossible and competing for a university place difficult. The new language plan has flexibility: a curriculum for the Diploma of Secondary Education exams (DSE); an applied Chinese language subject under the DSE with recognised qualifications; a vocational Chinese training programme; and other international Chinese-language qualifications.

Now the government must show commitment to offering an integrated education with equal opportunities for all.