Advertisement
Advertisement
Education
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
The original Intercommon Institute operated from a flat in Wan Chai. Photo: Facebook

Political education centre in Hong Kong shut down over ‘unauthorised teaching’ to reopen – but was its closing warranted?

  • Intercommon Education Centre in Mong Kok has received a provisional certificate to run courses until 2020
  • Questions linger over why it was forced to stop operating two years ago, with calls for clearer, updated rules on registering such establishments
Education

An educational centre offering courses in politics and social issues is set to reopen, two years after it was shut down by Hong Kong authorities for operating as an unauthorised school.

The Intercommon Education Centre in Mong Kok received a provisional certificate last month to run courses until 2020, but questions linger over why it had to stop operating in 2017, with calls for clearer, updated rules on registering such establishments.

“The exchange of knowledge by social groups is vital to civil society, but can be easily suppressed as ‘unauthorised educational courses’ if the definition of ‘school’ is not clear,” said Chan Kim-ching, founder of the centre, which opened in 2014 in the wake of the Occupy movement, Hong Kong’s biggest civil disobedience campaign.

Originally called the Intercommon Institute and operating from a flat in Wan Chai, the centre was started by the Liber Research Community, a pro-localism land and housing concern group also established by Chan.

Chan Kim-ching says the exchange of knowledge is vital in society. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

It ran short courses mostly comprising weekly lectures on topics such as leftist thought, major political struggles in China and the former Soviet Union in the 20th century, politics and the rule of law, ethics and social movement tactics.

More than 500 people attended the courses before the centre was issued a warning and ordered to close in early 2017, after Education Bureau officials conducted covert checks on its “unauthorised teaching activities”.

The closure prompted lawmakers to ask Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung if the bureau was trying to suppress political discussion by arbitrarily expanding the legal definition of a school.

Missing school funds, fake pupils, poor audits: education chief grilled

Yeung maintained that the bureau had simply followed the requirements of the Education Ordinance and had not considered the courses covered.

Under the ordinance, an establishment needs a certificate to operate as a school if it provides educational courses for at least 20 people on any single day, or eight people at any one time. It is exempted if it provides only a series of lectures, or a course on a particular subject or topic, or involves less than 10 hours of instruction a week.

Lawyer Chong Yiu-kwong, a senior lecturer at Education University of Hong Kong, said the definition of a school in the ordinance was so broad that many social groups might have breached the law by organising talks, lectures and sharing sessions.

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung said his bureau was just following the law. Photo: Nora Tam

The limits of 20 course participants a day or eight people at a time were stringent, and the maximum penalties of a HK$250,000 (US$32,000) fine and two years’ jail were quite harsh, he said, adding: “These are in fact pretty unbelievable in a modern society.”

Urging the bureau to review and update the ordinance, he said the rules, unchanged in more than two decades, could hinder the development of civil society.

“Not many public groups would have the time and resources to apply for exemption, let alone lodge a judicial review,” Chong said.

Responding to questions from the Post, a bureau spokesman referred to the ordinance and said: “Any institution, organisation or establishment … meeting the definition of ‘school’ is required to be registered.”

AI threat sees education fund doubled for Hong Kong workers

Chan announced on Facebook last month that the institute had been “revived” as the bureau had issued a certificate of provisional registration allowing it to run courses until the end of March 2020.

Preparing the documents had taken “two bitter years”, he said. Among other things, applicants must get various government departments to certify the school premises safe and appropriate to conduct classes.

“We had to maintain a place in Mong Kok as the premises for nine months, because we went through clearance at six different departments,” Chan said. “The rent has cost us more than HK$270,000.”

He said the centre would be rolling out new courses soon.

Post