Association of Hong Kong secondary school heads speaks out against calls to install CCTV in city’s classrooms

Association says monitoring students and teachers’ classroom behaviour would only lead to unnecessary controversies and hurt morale

Citing recent reports of worsening mental health among young people amid the pandemic and social polarisation, group says the consequences of surveillance could be ‘dire’

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The city’s largest association of secondary school heads has come out against calls to install CCTV in classrooms. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 8:44pm, 29 Mar 2021Updated: 10:04pm, 29 Mar 2021

Hong Kong’s biggest association of secondary school heads warned on Monday of the “dire” consequences of installing surveillance cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers, saying such a move – advocated by pro-establishment figures – could lead to political controversies and immense pressure on educators.

The Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary Schools made its opposition to the measure known after pro-Beijing lawmakers repeatedly pressured the Education Bureau to install cameras to keep tabs on teachers following a number of politically tinged complaints arising from the 2019 anti-government protests, despite officials’ reservations about the suggestion.

“The executive committee of the association is worried that over-monitoring, including through CCTV, will bring political contention into classrooms,” honorary executive secretary Michael Wong Wai-yu wrote in an article on the group’s website, adding the move would have a damaging effect on professionalism in education.

Citing recent reports of worsening mental health among young people, Wong warned: “No matter what the underlying causes for these mental health burdens are, with the pandemic raging across the globe and views split in society, installing CCTV in classrooms would mean introducing immense pressure on campus. The consequences are dire.”

Over the past few months, several pro-Beijing lawmakers have pushed the government to install CCTV inside classrooms, saying it could monitor teachers’ behaviour and uncover materials and content deemed biased – even insisting the measure should be done over educators and parents’ objections.

Earlier this month, Education Bureau representatives surveyed primary and secondary schools across the city about whether they had installed CCTV on campus, and where. Sources, however, said the bureau did not explain the reasons behind the questions.

The calls for classroom oversight come at a fraught time for local educators. Two teachers have been deregistered for life since last September over teaching materials deemed problematic, including one who drafted a worksheet that touched on Hong Kong independence. Some teachers have recently said they are planning to drop sensitive topics, avoid discussing social problems in China and stop holding events to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown amid simmering fears surrounding the Beijing-imposed national security law.