Education Chief Promotes More Putonghua Learning

Students need to learn more Mandarin for better opportunities

The Hong Kong Education Bureau claims news reports saying the city was considering switching the medium of instruction for Chinese lessons in Mandarin rather than Cantonese are "inaccurate".

However when Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin was interviewed by state-run Global Times, she said that "if conditions are met, schools can use Putonghua to teach the Chinese language subject." 

Choi says Putonghua should be used in schools

In the interview published on Monday, Choi said the young generation in Hong Kong would "suffer losses" in terms of opportunities arising from China's rapid development if they could not speak Mandarin.

Therefore, she said, schools must teach subjects in Mandarin rather than Cantonese. 

But the Education Bureau claimed some media outlets misinterpreted Choi's remarks as meaning Mandarin would be the teaching language of choice for all schools and would be comprehensively implemented.

Instead the bureau clarified that such policies would depend on the school's situation, "including the level of readiness among teachers, the Mandarin capability of students, the language environment on campus, the curriculum, and support available for learning and teaching."

The bureau also said that "teaching Chinese in Putonghua" has always been a long-term target in the Chinese language curriculum since 2002, and this policy has not changed.

However, if Choi is giving this big hint that students should further brush up on their Mandarin in order to compete with peers on the mainland, she should be appealing to the parents, as they are the ones who would prefer their children have good English skills to keep their employment options open.

Students are already learning Mandarin

Also, is Choi also suggesting that the level of Mandarin in schools is bad? Then whose fault is that? Perhaps better teachers should be hired? Oh wait thousands of them have left Hong Kong?

There was also a time when suddenly teachers in Hong Kong had to teach subjects in Cantonese rather than English because the government seemed to think students did not have a good grasp of what was going on in the class. This was difficult for teachers to do, who had for years and decades taught the subject in English. 

And now the government wants teachers to teach in Mandarin instead of Cantonese...