Hong Kong national security law: schools to get new teaching guidelines on legislation as officials review curriculum
- Education Bureau says ‘basic responsibility’ of schools to strengthen students’ sense of national identity
- Curriculum review will focus on China, cultural identity, and the Basic Law
Hong Kong’s schools will get new guidelines on national security education, and authorities are also reviewing the curriculum to increase learning of China’s constitution and the city’s Basic Law, officials said.
The Education Bureau said it was the “basic responsibility” of schools to strengthen students’ sense of national identity, after rare comments on education made by the city’s security minister John Lee Ka-chiu.
In an interview with the Beijing loyalists newspaper Ta Kung Pao, published on Thursday, Lee called for “tighter management” of schools to remove the “bad apples”.
Referring to what he deemed unprofessional teachers who had corrupted young minds, Lee said politics had no place in schools, and admitted it was partly because of the government’s failure to enact a national security law on its own.
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“Most of those in the sector are committed to education,” he said in the interview. “But there are a few bad apples. A small number of them involve professional misconduct … Therefore, we need to start with upgrading school management, and staff management.”