Lawmaker Warns Of 'forbidden Areas Of Thought'

Education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen has expressed concern that there will be "forbidden areas of thought" after the city's exams body decided to invalidate a controversial question that appeared on this year's Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) history exam.

The question had asked students whether Japan did more good than harm to China between 1900 and 1945.

Speaking on an RTHK programme on Tuesday, Ip said he thinks all topics should be open to discussion, and that the aim of the history DSE exam is to test students' ability, as they have to select information from different political or historical views and make an analysis.

He said that if students only know how to copy information, they won't know or understand how to answer such a question.

Ip also expressed concern that there will be "forbidden areas of thought" in the future and examiners will be too scared to ask difficult questions, which would leave no room for discussion and would also affect how teachers will teach.

Speaking after the programme, Ip said the government should consult the public when it comes to national security education, and that topics like war time history are not avoidable.

"So in the end, the exam question won't be creative or able to differentiate the ability levels of the students," he said. "The end result is a disaster for Hong Kong education as if the examination becomes dull, day-to-day teaching and learning will become dull as well."

Speaking on the same programme was the chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, Wong Kam-leung, who rejected Ip's concern about "forbidden areas of thought" and said the decision to invalidate the question was appropriate.

Wong said that although most of the students argued that Japan did more harm than good, about 40 percent of candidates still answered that there were more benefits than damage, reflecting that the question was misleading.

"The question was wrong, not the candidates, the students did nothing wrong," he said.

He argued that the exam was not just a test of knowledge, but also a test of the candidates' judgement on moral values, and it was not appropriate to criticise "indisputable facts" and use this as a way of distinguishing between students' abilities.