The Moral and National Education Controversy in Hong Kong - Essay Example

Hong Kong is a like a second home for most of the people of China. Irrespective of the fact that China is growing and is open up to the rest of the world, it still faces a restrictive enough present and an uncertain future. This makes them chose to give birth outside of China. Apart from this, some people give birth to their children outside of China to avoid the one child policy. Others do it to reap the benefits of the country the child is born into. This might include, the right to education, freedom to travel, good social services, etc (Birth rights battle: China vs.

Hong Kong 2012). This has lead to the plans to adopt Chinese civic education into the Hong Kong public school curriculum. This has created huge sparks of protests among the residents of Hong Kong. They believed that the young minds were being brainwashed’ by the pro-mainland (China) propaganda (National education raises furor in Hong Kong 2012). A ‘Moral and National Education’ subject was introduced against which 90,000 people protested on the streets. The controversy inflamed after the government’s National Education Services Centre distributed a booklet to the schools.

This booklet was entitled ‘The China Model’. Provocative statements such as China are ruling party is progressive, selfless and united. Events which are integral in China’s history have not been mentioned. . The idea behind national education is to supplement the original moral education curriculum with that of the national education. Some of the teaching course material that was made public depicted patriotic education being carried out inside China by the Communist Party for years. They argue that the framework of nationalism is being used to address history and culture.

People in favor of this subject (Chinese liaisons mainly) supported their stance by arguing that the same is being carried out in the West. The ironic thing is that when it comes to politics, the people of China resolutely decline to follow any of the Western models. Moreover, they argue that in the West, national education is inseparable from their political systems, speech environments and concepts of human rights (China Media Project 2012). People of the National Education Services centre are optimistic about the subject being introduced.

They argued that this one subject cannot brainwash the people of Hong Kong as they have access to a lot of information. Protestors argued that how there should be some flexibility regarding the implementation of National Education. Specific lessons to be taught in the classrooms can be chosen. Apart from this, national education can be incorporated as a broader theme. The government has adopted a very broad approach. They did not want to preclude any topic from the curriculum, whereas many critics wanted specific topics to be discussed and not all.

Moreover, people believe that the government does not keep a track of what is being taught nor will they supervise anything. A pluralistic approach of teaching the same subject will be adopted. The government