Weeks ago, my Education Bureau friend told me there would be a very interesting Hong Kong Legislative Council report about support measures for national security education. The report was finally released on Oct. 25, and I could not wait to see what it said.
The 20-page report was exhaustive on what was accomplished last year and the way ahead for the coming academic year. My first impression was that the national security law in Hong Kong has turned out something like the “backyard furnace campaign” in which scrap iron was used to make unusable steel in mainland China in the 1950s, and in which everyone had to participate. The report stresses that all Hong Kong residents are obligated to abide by the law, which aims to prevent, suppress, and punish acts and activities that endanger national security. The role of school education focuses on prevention so that it helps reduce the need for suppression and punishment in the future. As a result, national security education becomes the top priority at all levels of education, from kindergarten to university.
The report covers a wide range of areas, namely, school administration, school-based management, guidelines, school sponsoring bodies, school manager training, accountability mechanism, joint-school activities, home-school cooperation, teaching resources, teachers’ professional conduct (professional in this context meaning, of course, politically correct), induction training, in-service training, pre-service training, professional exchanges, and exchanges with schools in mainland China. I list all of them so that the reader can easily see that efforts on national security education are conspicuous and ubiquitous. The goal is for students to “understand China, enhance national pride, and consciously protect national security.”
Some may still say that it is only natural for Hong Kong residents, most of whom are Chinese, to receive national education and national security education. However, judging from cases in the past few years where teachers were disqualified on the grounds of “professional misconduct”for minor teaching problems, national security education is just a euphemism for being high-handed in reinforcing one-sided views and promoting “better left than right” in school. Under this new culture, it is not difficult to understand why a secondary school in Hong Kong accused 14 students of disrespecting the national flag weeks ago. Blaming students is a proactive means of clearing schools of national security complications.
“Making a clean break” is an inevitable result. For example, a poetry writing competition organized by the Hong Kong government includes a clause this year that the organizer will not assume any legal responsibility for any violation of the terms and conditions of the competition, and makes it clear that all legal responsibility for national security lies with the participants. Self-protection always comes first, therefore some government schools reportedly took photos of their flag-raising ceremonies and submitted them to the Education Bureau to prove that they had duly done as prescribed.
Classroom teaching has been seriously affected. Besides Liberal Studies, a subject that emphasizes critical thinking, being replaced by patriotic Citizenship and Social Development, the Chinese Language is also hugely challenged. A story goes that a teacher taught the famous prose “The Chronicle of Mr. ‘Close Enough’ ” by Dr. Hu Shih, a well-known modern Chinese essayist, and scholar. As the prose is a satire on Chinese nationality, a student shouted in class, “Isn’t this prose a violation of the national security law?”
A secured nation only creates an insecure classroom.
Just as the Cultural Revolution did in mainland China, national security education in Hong Kong is now “carrying out revolution deep in the soul.” No wonder Ming Pao reported in early November that we could have more than 1,200 education-related vacancies two months after the new school term starts. The education sector is going through a rough spell.
