Lack Of Formal Basic Law Education 'merits Concern'

A pro-government group has carried out a new survey that it says suggests many local schools aren’t teaching students about the Basic Law as part of their formal curriculum as required.

The Shine Tak Foundation said based on information gleaned from a poll of 156 school heads, it appears that 30-40 of schools do not include Basic Law education as part of any subject, such as Chinese history.

The group said this situation “merits concern”.

The study also found that 63 percent of respondents agree that their schools need to strength the effectiveness of their Basic Law education, and around half said they’d welcome more support from the Education Bureau in this regard.

A guest speaker, at the group’s press conference, legal scholar Eric Cheung from the University of Hong Kong, said there’s no need for the Education Bureau to jump in to dictate how schools teach pupils about Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

“Most schools, I think, are very professional. I think most teachers are very professional. So I think the authorities should place more trust on the professionalism of our teachers and principals to manage [the teaching], but what they can do is provide more support on resources”, Cheung said.

He also stressed the importance of maintaining a pluralistic approach to teaching, “so that our students can still look at in controversial issues from different angles objectively and in a more reasoned manner.”