Policy flip-flops

LANGUAGE policy has been a perennial problem in Hong Kong. Prior to the territory's return to Chinese rule in 1997, the colonial government adopted a laissez-faire policy towards the medium of instruction in schools, with the majority opting for English.

In 1998, after a government-commissioned study found that many schools, which claimed to be English-medium, were in fact teaching in a mixture of English and Cantonese - a practice said to be ineffective - the mother-tongue policy was introduced.

Schools were segregated into English- and Cantonese-medium streams, with only a quarter of the more than 400 government-funded secondary schools designated as English-medium. The rest were forced to adopt Cantonese as their language of instruction and to teach English as a second language.

The move caused a huge public uproar, with parents protesting and schools threatening to take the government to court if they were forced to switch to teaching in Cantonese (20 schools eventually did; 14 won).

After years of wrangling, the government announced in 2005 that it was reviewing the mother-tongue policy. Last month, it unveiled a proposal it said was aimed at 'fine-tuning' the current system.

The proposed changes are aimed at arresting the decline in English-language standards among students, and to remove the stigma attached to Chinese schools by abolishing the current segregation of secondary schools.

Under the proposal, a school's medium of instruction will be decided based on students' abilities. Secondary schools in which the majority of pupils are in the top 40 per cent of their cohort will be given autonomy in deciding whether to teach in English or Cantonese. Others which do not meet the benchmark will continue to teach in Cantonese, but must boost their English instruction time to at least 25 per cent.

The new policy is slated to be introduced next year.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.