Letters | In one Hong Kong classroom, students learn how they may be falling behind their Beijing peers
- Exchange students from Beijing prove themselves better with languages and in maths. It’s time Hong Kong learns from the mainland
Last week, students from Luhe High School in Beijing visited my school, since our institutions are sister schools. Two of the exchange students joined my class for three days of lessons.
At first, I thought we were no different from these visitors. Hong Kong being an international city, I even thought we were better than them. I could not have been more wrong.
We already know that Chinese-language standards on the mainland are higher than in Hong Kong, but many people think Hong Kong students are better in English than their mainland counterparts. This is apparently not true any more. I found from my interaction with our Beijing visitors that they could speak English more fluently, and were more skilful in using the right words. Yet, many people take for granted that Hongkongers are the better English speakers. It’s time we change our attitude.
During maths class, our Beijing friends told us they had already completed the lessons we were going through that day, back in their Year 6-7, which is equivalent to Primary 6 here. So in maths, too, they have surpassed us.
In short, Hong Kong is lagging behind the mainland. Times have changed, we should not be arrogant while doing nothing. We must not stick to a narrow outlook. Where others are doing better than our best, we should learn from them.
Meihing Lee, Tseung Kwan O