Barren of natural resources, Hong Kong’s daughters and sons are its best resource and talent pool, and they will have a better chance of maintaining our socioeconomic successes if armed with trilingual competency as befits our reputation as a leading metropolis.
Thus, our undeniable responsibility is to curate a nurturing environment from the foundational early education years so that our children will blossom into competent employees, professionals, entrepreneurs and artists.
Without a doubt, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has done remarkably well for the children by ensuring that, effective with the 2017-18 school year, it achieved the long-stated goal of providing 15 years of free schooling for all children. The equal access to free early education is a birthright of every eligible child in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, our children are actually in extreme distress at the moment.
In an education system wherein trilingualism is etched, the constant undermining of children’s abilities from their early education years has brought us to the unfortunate situation we find ourselves in today. While divisive issues such as ethnicity, mother tongue, race and social class have no place in a classroom, thanks to cumulative inaction over the years, many flaws have been allowed to seep into the education system, and from foundational early childhood years at that. The city’s Chinese children struggle with mastering English, and our nonethnic Chinese children’s failure to master Cantonese in an ideal immersive environment is a frequent grievance in the mainstream media. We are used to hearing our Chinese children referring to the Diploma of Secondary Education’s Chinese paper as “the paper of death”. Something is not right here!
It does not help that at the expense of the educational marginalization of the children, years have been wasted in mere commentaries, hypotheses, research, and recommendations for divisive “dumbed down”, second language, etc, curriculums, and in exhausting millions of dollars of taxpayers hard-earned money and the city’s resources. And lest we forget — the irrecoverable damage to our children’s wonder years. Although much time and generations have already been lost, one can always make a new start now to prioritize the well-being of Hong Kong’s children.
First, nurturing trilingualism — Mandarin (Putonghua), Cantonese and English — is nonnegotiable, now more so than ever, with phenomenal Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area opportunities opening up. This will enhance their employability and competence and transform them into valuable contributors to Hong Kong’s socioeconomic dynamism. Wouldn’t we much rather have a young generation that is self-empowered taxpayers as opposed to being intergenerational social welfare recipients?
Second, the “stakeholders” and educators must learn to trust and respect the children and believe in their learning potential. Restricting and restraining them based on stereotypes only translates into the children missing the joys of education and learning languages.
Third, addressing the root cause issues of early education years, as opposed to expending time, effort and resources on remedial measures to address the symptoms of later years of youths and adults, is the critical need of the hour.
Fourth, the unfortunate classifying of students based on their ethnicity and mother tongue has only served to make them feel inadequate. When Hong Kong’s international schools do not classify students on such a basis, why do the local schools and “stakeholders” feel the need to propagate this narrative?
We will be much better off and do right by our children if we prioritize developing homegrown talent over attracting overseas talent to fill the talent gap. Hong Kong is a world-class city, and we must have homegrown world-class children
Fifth, there has to be far better accountability and commitment to the key performance indicators on the part of the schools and their usage of the Education Bureau’s (EDB’s) most generous financial support. The March 2021 Audit report and the EDB itself in December 2022 highlighted the continued failure of the schools to provide sufficient support for Chinese language learning for nonethnic Chinese students (NCS) in the local schooling system. This is even though starting in 2014-15, the government earmarked an annual expenditure of HK$200 million ($25.74 million) for schools to encourage and support the integration of NCS students (notably students of diverse races) into the community, including facilitating their early adaptation to the local education system and mastery of the Chinese language. This annual expense jumped to HK$590 million in 2022-23.
Also, effective October 1996, the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research was established to advise the government on language education issues in general and the use of the Language Fund in particular. This was with the government’s best supportive intentions and commitment to enabling the people of Hong Kong, students and working adults in particular, to become biliterate (in spoken and written Chinese and English) and trilingual (in spoken Cantonese, Putonghua and English). And yet, here we are, still nowhere near a solution or any discernible improvements.
Sixth, the notion that special skills and extra money are required to teach non-Chinese children has to change. A child’s learning capacity does not depend on ethnicity, race or mother tongue. If this most unscientific logic were actual, none of us here would have ever learned more than one language.
Seventh, pedagogical rationalization is long overdue. When Hong Kong’s Chinese children labeled their mother tongue’s DSE language exam as the “paper of death”, evidently, the fault lies not with the children but with the system and its protagonists.
Eighth, a school and its teachers must welcome, appreciate, and respect children from different backgrounds and develop the humility to learn from their cultural diversity. At IBEL’s kindergarten school, we celebrate the Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, Christmas, and festivities of various ethnicities, such as Holi, all with equal gusto. That is integration and inclusion.
Ninth, the teachers should make educational visits to historic and cultural locations such as the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence and learn about the city’s history. The Multi-Ethnic Soldiers gallery introduces an era when the Hong Kong garrison embraced diverse people: British, Chinese, Indian and Nepalese, etc. Similarly, visits to Tai Kwun to learn from its multicultural stories are equally important in educating and training the teachers.
Tenth, instead of adopting a regressive approach by advocating that language skills (English and Chinese) shouldn’t be compulsory for university admissions, the Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary Schools would serve the children and Hong Kong better by finding solutions to best empowering the children with such basic multilingual skills, which are essential for metropolitan Hong Kong to nurture new generations of multitalented Hong Kong residents.
Last but not least, given how much the current local education system and the overburdened teachers have been struggling to provide a holistic educational environment for the children, the falling birthrate should be welcomed as a blessing in disguise. Instead of reducing primary classes, we should use this opportunity to lower the student-teacher ratio and aim for quantifiable improvements through a smaller student headcount per class.
It’s long accepted that education is the most potent tool to eradicate poverty. We must ensure that each child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential. Teachers and schools would do better to appreciate that all children can learn, but they learn differently.
We will be much better off and do right by our children if we prioritize developing homegrown talent over attracting overseas talent to fill the talent gap. Hong Kong is a world-class city, and we must have homegrown world-class children.
As Confucius wisely opined, “If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.”
The author is the co-founder and CEO of the educational NGO Integrated Brilliant Education and supports fostering multilingual and multicultural development among Hong Kong’s children.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
