KINGSPARK NEWS

Club Number: 30119

2007-08 Rotary Year : Issue 17 : 20 March 2008

Contents

Editorial (The Mother Tongue Saga) - By Francis Wann
From the Charter President (Happy Easter) - By CP John Wan
Letters to Editor
The Board

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EDITORIAL

The Mother Tongue Saga

Here we go again. This week, Secretary for Education Michael Suen admitted that ¡§¡Kthere is still much room for improvement in our students¡¦ English proficiency.¡¨ Yet he fell short of admitting defeat in the mother tongue policy and hinted that it needed to be "fine-tuned".

What that means is anybody¡¦s guess.

Ever since the mother tongue education policy became official, we¡¦ve seen the most unhealthy competitions among Hongkong schools clamouring to be included on the EMI list which is mysteriously limited to 112. These schools enjoy an unfair advantage and there is always the hidden agenda that they¡¦re the more desirable schools among parents. You only have to look at the queues when their feeder primary schools are open for application. For most parents, they are the preferred ones.

Readers need no reminding the kind of opposition among teachers when our education reforms began. By their strange arithmetic, 85 % of students in these schools would have no problems learning in the medium of English. And that sparked off the inevitable numbers game among schools and the bureau. They say schools will be regularly assessed on their qualifications as an EMI schools which also means the current Chinese medium schools can still enter the fray.

Government officials are still claiming the reform is in the right direction and what¡¦ s needed is only a bit of flexibility and fine-tuning. They cited official figures which claimed an increase in number of students gaining passes in at least five subjects in the cert exams. What they didn¡¦t tell us was of course these students overall deplorable standards of English.

About two weeks ago on Radio 3¡¦s Backchat, Rosalind Chan, Chair of EMI Schools Association, reminded us the Government said 40 per cent of our students are capable to learn in English but only 20% of them can go to an EMI school as a result of strict monitoring of the number. She talked about a Chinese medium school which used English textbooks in all subjects, but then the economics teacher only spoke two English words in the whole lesson - "supply" and "demand".

I tend to agree with Professor Philip Hoare of Hong Kong Institute of Education who said the mother tongue policy was basically driven by sound education principles. It isn¡¦t an English problem; nor is it a political problem. There are still English lessons conducted in Cantonese today and the only English students use at school is ¡§Good morning¡¨ and ¡§Good bye¡¨, and this phenomenon does not only occur in Chinese medium schools. Ask any students of EMI schools and they can testify what English lessons are like.

But an English medium school does not only mean lessons conducted in this language. It¡¦s how the school strives to create an English environment which is more important. As Prof Hoare said, we want our students to be good in English, but not at the expense of physics, maths, or sciences.

There was a time in the past when we had to fight to have the Chinese language officially recognized. But in those days, students seemed to have little difficulty in either English or Chinese. It was also an era when we didn¡¦ t have education bureaucrats telling teachers what to do in the classroom.

Now when you listen to their views on education, you¡¦d have thought that our future is in their hands.

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From the Charter President

Happy Easter

I have not been well for over ten days. I started last week without my voice; and I gave myself a good part of the week to regain it. I had actually been rather disciplined with what I ate and drank. I had no alcohol, no fried food and had congee for I could not remember how many meals. I deliberately did not take any antibiotics because I understand how these drugs work; and instead went for TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) which promises a slow recovery regime. I went to the herbalist for the daily portion and had my pulse taken almost daily, but nothing seemed to be working.

The good news was, I had no fever, I was not coughing blood, and I did not feel any soreness in the muscles. The bad news though was that I coughed when I tried to speak, and my voice had been very weak. Worst of all, I did not sleep well at night because of the coughing.

Some friends bought and brought me congee and food; and I missed a few appointments during the week. My herbalist doctor had been rather confident and optimistic and assured me that I was on the road to recovery. I am sure that must be the case, except that we had taken a rather slow road.

The inconvenience and pain apart, taking time to nurse one's illness can be some experience for anyone interested in finding out more about oneself, and hopefully, to gain some humility and insight about one's body and constitution. The first thing one must learn is not to be upset, for that won't help in any way. One must learn to live with the conditions, accept them as part of oneself during the period, talk to the virus, live with it peacefully and when the time comes, when the conditions are conducive, invite the virus to leave.

This is where a western regime based on antibiotics could be problematic. That could be a reason why a few of our young school children died last week, which precipitated in early school closures.

I was wondering whether my brother would talk about school closure, but that I was not surprised that he had decided to discuss mother tongue education. This is also something close to my heart, and was actually one of the reasons why I had decided to take on the study programme of education that I am now doing. The programme has introduced deadlines and timeframes which tend to interfere with my retirement, but that is another story.

Well, the Easter Holidays have begun; and for many people, this is a time to take the family on a holiday away from Hong Kong. That would certainly lighten the traffic and hopefully the spread of more communicable diseases. Wherever you may be, I wish you well and I wish a Happy Easter with your family and loved ones.

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Letters to Editor

Views in any article in Kingspark News reflect those of the authors. They are not necessarily the views of the Rotary Club of Kingspark or of District 3450. You are welcome to write to Chief Editor Francis Wann or Club Webmaster John Wan on any topic, particularly in response to articles published in Kingspark News. We would publish all contributions as long as the authors identify themselves, the contents are not offensive or abusive, and would not offend common decency or common sense. You need not be a Rotarian to write to us and you have a choice to withhold your name in the published version. Where the contents make reference to statements or policies of individuals or organizations, we would try to obtain a response from the latter for publication in the same issue if possible.

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The Board

President : Marvin Lai
President-Elect and Membership: Joyce Mak
Vice-President and Public Relations: Michael Eyles
Secretary : Kennedy Tsang
Treasurer : Ted Ho
Rotary Foundation : Patrick Wong
Club Administration : Edward Lau
Service Projects : Peter Lo
Sergeant-at-Arms : Alexander Kar

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