2 Hong Kong special schools told to boost national security education in curriculum
- Authorities singled out handful of institutions including Caritas Resurrection School in Sha Tin and Po Leung Kuk Law’s Foundation School in Yuen Long
- School administrators were ‘slow’ or failed to fully implement elements of national education into subjects taught in school, report says
Hong Kong authorities have urged two special schools for children with intellectual disabilities to step up their national education curriculum, singling out the institutions and others over failing to do enough on the subject.
The Education Bureau on Friday released a summary report of an external review of a first batch of 10 schools on its website, covering various education performance indicators and offering suggestions.
According to the report, Caritas Resurrection School in Sha Tin, which caters to children with moderate intellectual disability, failed to fully cover the country’s constitution and the city’s Basic Law mini-constitution in its general studies subject and was “slow” in adding national security education into all others.
“Currently, there are attempts to link up only some subjects with national security education content, and the progress is slow,” the report said.
“The leadership must lead in reviewing the subjects’ connection between the learning content and national security education, and fully implement national security education,” it added.
The report on Po Leung Kuk Law’s Foundation School, an institution in Yuen Long for severely intellectually disabled children, said the institution only had a small number of its subjects combined with learning elements of national security education.
“The school must fully implement national security education as soon as possible to help students learn national security education content comprehensively,” it said.
The report added that the school should make good use of its environment to create an atmosphere conducive to cultivating national identity in students.
The external school review is part of the school development and accountability framework introduced by the bureau in the 2003-04 school year.
An enhanced framework was launched after the 2022 policy address to bolster the accountability of staff in publicly funded schools in providing quality education and enhancing national education.
Individual schools were also required to release the full reports to key stakeholders and encouraged to upload the documents online.
Reviews were conducted by analysing the documents provided by schools, observing the classes and other school activities such as flag-raising ceremonies as well as talking with faculties and parents.
Some of the other schools included in the first batch were also urged by the education authorities to step up education on national security.
The review report on Yuen Long Public Secondary School highlighted that elements of national security education were only found in some subjects while teachers’ understanding of the topic varied.
It was urged to step up its efforts to ensure that the national security elements were included in all key learning areas and subjects.
The report on the Tseung Kwan O Catholic Primary School said that the curriculum framework of national security education was only referred to in its Chinese and general studies subjects.
It recommended the school combine the elements of national security education in its teaching content to cultivate students’ awareness and responsibility for safeguarding national security.
Additional reporting by William Yiu
