Teachers Can Still Cover Tiananmen: Lee Wai-kim

A member of the government's committee revising the Chinese history curriculum has rejected accusations that politics was a factor when it omitted controversial issues such as the 1989 June Fourth massacre in Beijing from the curriculum, and said teachers can still cover those areas if they want.

Lee Wai-kim said on Sunday that the committee exercised its professional judgement, not its political judgement, in compiling the new proposed syllabus, which will be adopted in two years.

He said that only one or two teachers who were surveyed had said that June Fourth should be taught.

Lee said not everything can be included in the official syllabus, but teachers could still teach those issues if they choose.

On Saturday, the Secretary for Education, Kevin Yeung, also dismissed suggestions that political considerations were behind the decision to scrap a separate, stand-alone chapter on Hong Kong history in future Chinese history textbooks for junior secondary school students.

The government announced earlier this week that instead of illustrating Hong Kong history separately, the city's developments will now be integrated into the country's history, with a special emphasis on Hong Kong's role in the mainland's reform process.

The school curriculum has been in the spotlight recently, with the media reporting last month that the Education Bureau's Textbook Committee had decided that certain phrases in some Chinese History textbooks were "inappropriate", and had asked the publishers to change them.

The phrases included "Hong Kong is located in southern China" and "China took back the sovereignty of Hong Kong".