Leaders determined to safeguard the teaching profession to ensure quality education for HK’s budding young minds.

Govt vows to protect students after teacher talked politics at class

BEIJING: The city’s leader and the education chief said that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government is determined to weed out the “rotten apples” on campus and safeguard the teaching profession to ensure quality education for Hong Kong’s youths.

Such unwavering commitment was hailed by a prominent educator, after the Education Bureau announced on Monday that a primary school teacher was deregistered for “deliberately disseminating pro-independence messages” to his Primary Five students during life education classes.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday noted the severity of the case as it was the first time ever that a teacher was deregistered for professional misconduct under the Education Ordinance.

Lam said the HKSAR government shares a common goal with many professionals in the education sector – which is to promote and develop quality education in Hong Kong.

“But if there are a very tiny fraction of teachers who are using their teaching responsibilities to convey wrong messages to promote misunderstanding about the nation, to smear the country and the HKSAR government without a basis, then that becomes a very serious matter,” Lam added.

In the face of the mounting challenge, she pledged to weed out “black sheep” in the education sector because Hong Kong education can no longer be unguarded like “a chicken coop without a flap”.

Lam stressed that the school’s management and its sponsoring body share responsibility with the government in being the gatekeepers on this issue.

Education has been one of the key areas that Lam’s administration has pledged to invest heavily in.

Lam stressed that apart from providing resources, the government has a duty to protect students.

In a news briefing on Tuesday, the education authorities said the penalty is “reasonable and proportionate” when one considers the nature and gravity of the teacher’s misconduct.

They said that after a detailed and comprehensive probe into the incident, there is ample evidence to prove a “premeditated act”.

The probe found that the teacher had designed a detailed lesson plan, which spent the bulk of the time during two classes in March 2019, teaching students about Hong Kong independence and explaining the manifesto of a currently outlawed local separatist party.

At one point, students were even asked to raise their hands if they supported Hong Kong independence, according to the officials.

Education Secretary Kevin Yeung said not only were the teaching materials “twisted and biased”, but due to the complexity of such a topic, it was also not an appropriate learning material for primary school.