User:Erinjen312/sandbox

Introduction
Education system in Hong Kong has undergone significant changes throughout the colonial and post-colonial period, along with the emergence of different kinds of schools, including public schools, private schools and so forth. The development of various types of schools is subject to education and population policies in Hong Kong. As such, this article is going to discuss the changes occurred in public schools, private schools, religious schools and designated schools, plus, giving explanations to the changes based on local education and population policies.

Designated Schools & Mother-tongue Education in Hong Kong
The Education Bureau changed drastically over the past several years. Education Bureau desired to create schools that would admit students who cannot speak Chinese. Before 1997, Hong Kong was under the administration of British rule. Hong Kong was a destination for many people all around the world, because Hong Kong’s education met the international standards. Public education is free in Hong Kong from primary school till end of secondary school. This is appealing to many foreigners to have their kids become citizen of Hong Kong. Therefore the foreigners’ children can benefit from this policy. Before under the British rule, the English language was a very important for British teach its citizens.

After 1997 British had given back Hong Kong to Mainland China and the education changed. Mainland China is slowly integrating Hong Kong back as being part of China. In order to do so, Mandarin and Cantonese is slowly creeping into the school system and into the society. Chinese’s dominance is starting to show and English is slowly getting phased out. In September 1997 “’Mother-tongue teaching policy’” was implemented after Hong Kong was given back to China. In the Hong Kong Education Bureau they have made “guidance” for Secondary school. There is a detailed explanation of the policy they set and why they did it. Hong Kong Education Bureau believes that teaching in their mother tongue would allow students to learn and understand much better. As result of this education policy, public schools starting to switch their medium of instructions from English to Chinese switched more than 300 secondary schools from English to Chinese (Yang). Many elite schools continued to use English as a medium of instruction, which is very appealing to many Hong Kong parents. The policy was met with parents being furious and there was a lot of negative reaction from the public (Yan). Parents want their kids to be immense in English environment because Hong Kong was once a colony of British. English mastery is valued all around the world. Therefore most college still use English as a medium of teaching besides Chinese.

Hong Kong locals aren’t just comprised of Hong Konger and Mainland immigrants; there are also a lot of foreigners that made themselves home in Hong Kong. Not all Hong Konger speaks Chinese at home. There are south east, middle east Asian and etc. This makes it very difficult for them integrate into society. As result, Designated Schools were first created in 2006 to support Non-Chinese Speaking Students. Hong Kong Education Bureau has given “annual special grants of $300,000 for ‘designated schools’ to recurrent grant to assist them in implementing school-based support measures and have raised the ceiling of the grant to $600,000 depending on the number of NCS students in the respective ‘designated schools’” (edb.gov.hk). These “designated schools” are designed to also allow schools to develop the expertise needed to better teach NCS all around Hong Kong (edb.gov.hk).

Hong Kong Government is trying to assimilate the non-Chinese speaking students. Hong Kong is taking steps in designated school to teach NCS Chinese. This is a great way to integrate the new generation of kids into the society that is heavily dominated by Chinese. The Designated school also allows NCS students to feel more comfortable because majority of the people in these schools aren’t Chinese. Mr. Singh, a student from designated school, said ‘”I’m glad I am studying at a designated school,’ he said. ‘I know I will feel alone, and uncomfortable, if I studied in a mainstream school”’ (Yang). Many of these students are from ethnic minorities. These families don’t speak Chinese at home and they would require more assistance in learning Chinese. Learning Chinese would allow them to be more integrated into Hong Kong society.

Hong Kong provides after-school support to NCS who started late in learning Chinese (edb.gov.hk). There was a lot of language funding of support measures for NCS students and many schools has joined the project of “after-school support in Chinese Learning” (edb.gov.hk). Hong Kong citizens’ perspectives of Designated schools weren’t so positive. Many people in Hong Kong criticize designated school. “‘It is racial segregation,’ Fermi Wong, executive director of Hong Kong Unison, a non-governmental organization that helps minority groups. ‘Students study in narrow social circles, and they are largely disconnected from society’” (Yang). Fermi Wong claims that these designate schools provide poor quality educations, which results in NCS students unable to read and write Chinese. Many of these ethnic minority children comes from low-income families which means they are unable to afford to go to better quality schools such as international schools. There is a lot of competition in Hong Kong for school placements because all Chinese parents want their kids to go to great schools (Yang).

Yuen Yuet-Mui, associate professor in the Department of Education Policy and leadership at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, also mentioned that the policy segregate people and “learning Chinese in the absence of an immersive environment is extremely difficult…and kills [non-Chinese speaking children’s’] motivation to move into the main stream society” (Chinadaily). Without letting the NCS children into the mainstream public school, they are being separate from society. They would feel uncomfortable when they are with locals students and would face many difficulties in the future. Letting NCS children being in more immersive environment such as mainstream school and make school universal would allow children to learn faster.

Having a universal system using English, as a medium will allow Hong Kong education to meet the demands of the people. The school will not have to segregate children and allow interaction between different races and culture. At the same time they can continue to have after-school support to NCS for those who are still struggle with Chinese. This will further improve their Chinese and would allow them to have conversation with their fellow colleague and further intergrate them into society.