Opinion | Lessons on Chinese history, both the good and the ugly, would benefit Hong Kong students

It is time to clear up misunderstandings among some mainland officials and pro-government figures about the teaching of Chinese history in Hong Kong. Many blame the inadequate understanding of Chinese history among some of our young people for their participation in the Occupy Central protests. In an interview with Phoenix TV last month, Chen Zuoer , chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a mainland think tank, lamented that only 6,000-plus senior secondary students in Hong Kong now studied Chinese history, compared with about 50,000 before the handover.

Chen, who was formerly deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said it was compulsory before the handover for senior secondary students to study Chinese history and he could not understand why the practice was stopped.

Speaking at a forum this month, Chen said there had been a lot of problems with education in Hong Kong since the handover and that the education sector was "in a mess" during the Occupy protests.

Yet, it's a myth that Chinese history was compulsory for secondary school students before the handover. In the colonial era, the junior secondary school curriculum did not require schools to introduce Chinese history as an independent subject, though most schools chose to teach it.

Since the introduction of education reform in 2000, all junior secondary students are required to study Chinese history. Currently, 88 per cent of secondary schools teach Chinese history as an independent subject for their junior secondary students, while the rest link the subject with world history or incorporate it into integrated humanities.

Admittedly, the number of senior secondary students studying Chinese history has fallen. For this, mainland officials looking to assign blame should point their finger at the curriculum restructuring introduced in 2009.