Poisonous consequences of HK’s liberal studies courses

C. K. Yeung argues that subject should no longer be made compulsory in HK schools, and be replaced by Chinese history as the first step to save our children

Our education system is on trial. First, we have liberal studies teachers inciting students to embrace violent protests. Then we have history teachers and history textbooks that knowingly distort historical facts to vilify our motherland. These amount to acts of political subversion found only in enemy-occupied territories of a country at war, not in a territory that has returned to its rightful sovereign.

Such bizarre behavior is apparently a common feature of our present-day classrooms. The consequences are brutal. Last month, two students, one 16 and the other 17, were charged with murder in connection with the death of a 70-year-old man fatally hit by a brick to his head in November when a group of “black shirts’’ were staging a violent protest on a street. In another case, a 19-year-old student was arrested for slashing the neck of a police officer with a box-cutter in public without any provocation, while the police officer was simply brushing past a group of protesters. These are not isolated incidents. Indeed, more than 40 percent of the 8,000-plus radicals arrested during the social unrest last year were students, the youngest was only 11! The latest includes a 15-year-old who was arrested for throwing a petrol bomb.

What do our teachers have to say about student violence? The official position of the Hong Kong Liberal Studies Teachers’ Association is that teachers must “remain neutral” when conducting class discussions on violent protests.

On its website it declares: “The education sector has reached a consensus long ago that in classroom discussions on violent protests, teachers must remain neutral and provide balanced opinions both for and against violence”. It is interesting to note that a former chairman of this teacher association is none other than a Lai Tak-chung, who achieved notoriety last year for posting “Death to the Whole Families of Black Police” on his Facebook account. What can you expect of our liberal studies teachers when they have such a misguided man as chairman?

Therefore, according to the association representing our liberal studies teachers, violence is not a matter of right or wrong. It is merely a matter of opinion. Any views against violence must be balanced by a countervailing opinion in favor of violence. On one side of the ledger, violence is against the law; on the other, it is an act of heroism, and both of these two opinions are true. This corrupting sophistry can easily mislead even some adults — never mind young students who have yet to spend a day in the rough and tumble of the real world. Clearly these students are not to be blamed. They are simply too immature to know the difference between right and wrong on certain abstract issues. So who is to blame for turning our previously well-behaved students into rampaging violent protesters?

The government earlier announced that 80 teachers had been arrested last year and another 123 subject to complaints in connection with the protests. I filed formal enquiries with the Education Bureau asking how many of these 200-plus teachers are involved in liberal studies. I sought no names and only a number. Despite repeated requests, I got stonewalled. Is the truth too ugly to tell?

The tragic fact is that liberal studies is no ordinary school subject, but a compulsory one that all students must take. And it is one of four core subjects — along with Chinese language, English language, and mathematics – whose results will decide whether a student can get a place in our government-funded universities.

Even more baffling is that it is the only subject — out of a total of 20-plus subjects in secondary school curricula — whose textbooks do not require compulsory vetting by the Education Bureau. And it does not have a set of formal guidelines for its textbooks. The

Education Bureau has turned a blind eye to this very subject that shapes our students’ young minds en masse.

This subject that has no coherent body of knowledge and whose teaching is increasingly based on news clippings and questionable online content became a compulsory subject 10 years ago. Judging by its fallout, this 10-year educational experiment is an unmitigated disaster.

By contrast, a former core subject with far more educational value — Chinese history — has been sidelined. Sidelined not just in the sense of having been dropped as a compulsory subject but also in its unregulated content.

Last month, a primary school teacher was caught teaching students that the Opium War came about because Britain wanted to wean Chinese people off their addiction to opium. Another secondary school taught students that the Opium War was caused by political and ideological conflicts between China and Britain. It conveniently forgot to mention that Britain shipped massive amounts of opium to China to enslave its people through addiction and extract China’s wealth and subsequently invaded China when imperial China tried to ban the opium trade.

These grotesque distortions of historical facts did not stem from individual teachers’ own teaching notes. A Chinese history textbook widely used in our secondary schools openly vilifies China for the Opium War, pinning the blame on Chinese national hero Lin Zexu for “unwisely” trying to eradicate opium, leading to the outbreak of the Opium War. Far from being isolated mistakes, it is systemic miseducating of students all the way from junior primary schools to senior secondary schools, through textbooks, teaching materials and misguided teachers. No wonder a 13-yearold student was arrested for setting fire to a national flag.

What is the solution to this? Many educators that I know want to see our education put back on the right track by turning liberal studies into an elective subject, dropping it from the core subject list for university admission, and reinstating Chinese history as a compulsory subject throughout secondary schools. An expert committee must be set up to re-examine all teaching materials and textbooks for liberal studies and Chinese history. This is the first step in detoxifying our education system and saving our children.

This subject that has no coherent body of knowledge and whose teaching is increasingly based on news clippings and questionable online content became a compulsory subject 10 years ago.