It was a regular art lesson - or at least the teacher and the students attending the class thought so - but out of the blue this small visual art class of 18 Form Four students at Diocesan Boys' School found themselves at the centre of a debate among parents and educationalists last month.
The controversy arose after one student allegedly complained to a reporter that he felt embarrassed about the presence of a nude female model at the class.
The art teacher justified the presence of the model, saying the school had conducted nude painting classes for its students for 10 years, and that it was not the first lesson of the semester.
However, some educationalists said that it was inappropriate to confront 16-year-old boys with nude female models, on the grounds that they might not be mature enough.
Others wondered whether it was necessary for Form Four art students to be learning advanced artistic techniques such as nude painting - wouldn't drawing an apple or a fully-clad model be good enough?
Although the media coverage died down after just a few days, the issue of whether nude art should be taught in secondary schools remains unresolved. Is there an appropriate age for students to study the nude, or - because of the sensitivity of the topic - should it be scrapped completely from art education and be substituted with something else?
