Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam tells schools to promote sport to bolster pupils’ national identity
- Lam calls for principals to harness the power of sport to encourage stronger feelings of national pride in pupils
- Education officials this week increased the number of civic values to be taught on compulsory basis to 10, now includes law-abidingness
Hong Kong’s leader has urged schools to promote sport as a way of bolstering young people’s sense of national identity, one of the civic values that must be instilled into pupils under a recently revised curriculum.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Thursday said that such feelings could be found in all elite athletes as she officiated the naming of a Lam Tai Fai College classroom after Tokyo Olympics hero Edgar Cheung Ka-long, who left the school in 2014.
The Education Bureau this week updated its “Values Education Curriculum Framework”, adding three new values – law-abidingness, empathy and diligence – to the seven that schools were already required to foster in pupils. The existing ones are perseverance, respect for others, responsibility, national identity, commitment, integrity and care for others.
“When the national anthem is played and the regional flag raised, those standing on the podium in the Olympic, Asian and international games will naturally feel a sense of national identity,” Lam said.
She added that during their training athletes would need to cultivate many of the values highlighted in the latest education framework, such as perseverance and commitment.
Lam said a raft of measures aimed at boosting sports development would be rolled out in the wake of the city’s Olympics success.
Hong Kong athletes marked a historic showing at this summer’s Games by bringing home six medals – one gold, two silvers and three bronzes.
One of the initiatives is the construction of a new 9,000 square metre (97,000 sq ft) building at the Hong Kong Sports Institute in Sha Tin, which Lam has targeted for completion before Paris 2024.
