Failing Attempts

I'm having the hardest time grasping this new policy on the medium of instruction in secondary schools.

Our government is setting aside HK$640 million to brush up the English-language skills of teachers. Not students, but teachers. In addition to the subject(s) specialized in, secondary school teachers must also strive to be fluent English speakers. It's so that a science teacher could focus on something other than science and teaching and instruct his classes in broken English; and students could struggle more than they already do by trying to decipher local accents, grammatical errors and mispronounced vocabulary. How did sticking with the language everyone's comfortable with become less than ideal?

In enhancing one's language skills, the importance of exposure cannot be denied. Sesame Street and other children's programs, story books, songs and playgroups work wonders. If I were a parent, the last thing I'd want is for my kid to pick up a second language by listening to those who don't speak it. It’s bad enough that half the Filipino domestic helpers here already double as English tutors for their little masters. Why would you expect kids to learn English from teachers who were never meant to teach English, most of whom were probably educated locally in Chinese?

I would think that HK$640 million is plenty for establishing a bona fide language immersion program as part of our city’s education system ― one that employs qualified native-English-speaking teachers in each subject area; one that truly surrounds students in an English-speaking environment in and outside of the classroom. Or better yet, set aside some space at the West Kowloon Cultural District for an English Village.

Even more baffling is how this new policy is supposed to reduce the labeling that is so deeply rooted in Hong Kong’s education system. Starting with the first year of kindergarten, students are distributed based on their abilities ― “A” being the class with the supposed brightest students. I can still remember being placed in the “D” class in fifth grade as a result of getting a D grade in one subject the previous year, even though I had all A’s and B’s otherwise. It was such a big deal; I thought I was doomed for life.

It's precisely this competitive environment embraced by parents, educators and students alike from the very early stages of life that makes Hong Kong "Hong Kong". This is the place with an established banding system for secondary schools. Chinese or English as the medium of instruction, one school will always be more prestigious than another. You just can't have your Ivy-League-breeding education system and eat your neutrality across the student population too.