Hong Kong has ambitious plans to become an international higher education hub. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced as much in his policy address. We are home to top-ranked universities, and the plan seems on track. But are we really preparing our children for these education ambitions? Are we equipping them to join our top-ranked universities?
Ahead of any findings, however, a council representing subsidised secondary schools has already called for more institutions to be allowed to teach subjects in English to better prepare pupils for higher education. Indeed, we don’t need a study to tell us that, when almost all our post-secondary programmes are conducted in English. When schools are policy-bound to teach in Chinese, we are clearly not preparing our students to be part of the city’s education hub ambitions. And that shows up a huge gap in our policies.
According to the global English Proficiency Index, Hong Kong has declined for the fourth consecutive year to rank 39th globally and third in Asia after Malaysia and the Philippines. Singapore, reclassified as a native English-speaking country, is no longer on the index.
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Cantonese or Mandarin? A debate in Hong Kong education since 2008
Cantonese or Mandarin? A debate in Hong Kong education since 2008
Critics of the mother-tongue policy worried that restricting students’ exposure to English would affect their acquisition of the language, and this has happened. Our literacy rate may be high but our spoken English is weak.
