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Hong Kong school sets up task force to probe allegations of protest-related misconduct by teachers in classroom

  • Concern group Help Our Next Generation says it received 20 complaints of teachers behaving unprofessionally or distributing ‘biased’ study materials
  • Baptist Wing Lung Secondary School in Tuen Mun says it has set up a task force to look into allegations

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Students from various schools demonstrate to mark the first anniversary of Hong Kong’s anti-government protests in Kwun Tong on June 9. Photo: Nora Tam
Chan Ho-him
A Hong Kong secondary school has set up a task force to probe allegations that its teachers had spread improper messages in class, after a former city leader warned of suing the Education Bureau for not naming institutions in which teachers were involved in protest-related misconduct.
Leung Chun-ying, former chief executive and the vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, also said on Monday that a group he founded would gather and publicise information about teachers and schools that breached their professional codes.

Hours earlier, concern group Help Our Next Generation, formed last month by educators and parents, said at a press conference that it had received about 20 complaints of teachers behaving unprofessionally in classrooms or distributing “biased or one-sided” teaching materials among pupils.

One of three schools targeted in complaints is Baptist Wing Lung Secondary School in Tuen Mun, where the group said teaching materials in liberal studies classes were biased. The group also said that a Chinese teacher in the school had asked pupils to discuss in class whether “students [taking part] in a referendum on holding a class boycott should be punished”.

“It is confusing … why the teacher had to lead students to discuss political issues in a Chinese lesson,” group chairman David Cua Chiu-fai said.

But the group did not provide copies of the school’s liberal studies teaching materials.

Baptist Wing Lung Secondary School, which held a special meeting on Monday evening to discuss the issue, said on Tuesday it had set up a task force to look into the allegations and would provide further explanations later.

“[Our school] has been fostering a loving campus environment with the help of parents and community members. We also hope to assist our pupils in forming a positive and active view of life,” the statement read.

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