Letters | Hong Kong must learn right lessons from post-colonial education policies elsewhere

Readers discuss the danger of basing education policy on ideology, religious teaching at school, labour guidelines for bad weather, and why home price bulls should keep calm

Reading Time:3 minutes

Candidates sit the DSE English Language examination in Hong Kong on April 21. Photo: Handout

Published: 11:30am, 16 Oct 2023

Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at letters@scmp.com or filling in this Google form. Submissions should not exceed 400 words, and must include your full name and address, plus a phone number for verification.

I refer to “Post-colonial Hong Kong should rethink religious schools” (October 3), which argues for the “disappearance of religious schools”. The writer seems to have failed to understand the cosmopolitan basis of modern Hong Kong society and the legal protections for cultural and religious rights embedded in the Basic Law and the Bill of Rights Ordinance.

The writer’s assertion that religious schools undermine religious freedom is belied by his own disposition. As a self-described beneficiary of Catholic education, he was not brainwashed into a compliant Catholic robot and has freely chosen to be an atheist. Nobody is forced to attend a religious school; the writer has only his parents to blame if he did not enjoy his time at a Catholic school.

Second, the resort to “patriotism” and the condemnation of religious schools as propagating “Western values” are unsupported by evidence. Quite aside from the reality that a good number of pro-establishment politicians have graduated from religious schools, the simplistic characterisation of Christianity as “Western” would surprise most major churches, which these days have more adherents in Africa, Asia and South America than they do in the West.

Third, postcolonial societies which chose to trash historic academic institutions have only suffered from their ideological blindness. Myanmar could have been the first “Asian tiger” economy; the military regime nationalising church schools in the 1960s and abolishing English as a medium of instruction, no doubt, contributed to decades of economic stagnation and a labour force that ceased to be internationally competitive.

Similarly, Malaysia’s 1969 decision to abolish English as a medium of instruction in schools helped consign the nation to economic backwater status, with English-speaking Singapore next door showcasing the benefits of basing education policy on individual choice and pragmatism rather than nationalistic ideology.