Education in Hong Kong: Testing times

Hong Kong's next leader wants to make life easier for pupils

Will it make her more popular than the current chief executive?

Apr 12th 2017 | HONG KONG

THE leader of Hong Kong, Leung Chung-ying, will not be widely missed when he steps down at the end of June, especially by the young. His five-year term has been dogged throughout by student-led protests. In 2012 thousands of high-school pupils demonstrated against what they saw as an effort to teach them to love the Chinese Communist Party (“national education”, as the government called it). Leaders of the campaign were back on the streets again two years later demanding full democracy. Their “Umbrella Movement” was the biggest act of civil disobedience in the territory’s history and spawned new groups demanding “self-determination” for Hong Kong.

No wonder, then, that Carrie Lam, who was chosen in March to succeed Mr Leung, is trying to win over the territory’s youth. To be successful, she cannot be seen as another Mr Leung. That will be tricky. In her previous role as Hong Kong’s top civil servant, she had to implement his policies—and, by extension, those of the party in Beijing. Mrs Lam is widely remembered for her obduracy in a televised debate with student leaders during the Umbrella unrest (protesters watching her are pictured). As chief executive, Mrs Lam will still have no freedom to propose political reform unless China wants it. At a meeting in Beijing on April 11th with the president, Xi Jinping, she at least had the gumption to tell him (or so she later said) that “Hong Kong citizens passionately hope for more democracy.” China does not.

Instead of dwelling on politics, Mrs Lam is trying to show concern for students’ welfare. Schools in Hong Kong produce admirable results. But academic pressures on pupils are enormous. Last year Mr Leung’s government commissioned a report on whether academic demands were to blame for a spate of student suicides. Many Hong Kongers were outraged by its finding that the suicides were not directly related to the education system.

Unlike Mr Leung, who supported rigorous testing of students even at a very young age, Mrs Lam talks of a need to “reduce pressure” on them. She has taken aim at a particularly controversial scheme, supported by Mr Leung, for assessing the performance of primary schools. It involves testing pupils but not telling them their scores: the results are only used to grade the schools. It has resulted in heavy pressure on students. Last year, amid an outcry from parents, the government suspended one form of such tests. But it said it would introduce a new scheme this year that many parents fear will be little different. Mrs Lam wants the testing to be scrapped altogether. Mr Leung has curtly advised her that she cannot abolish it until his term ends.

During her campaign to become chief executive, Mrs Lam promised to increase the annual budget for education by HK$5bn ($643m), or nearly 7%, noting that government spending on this was below the average in wealthy economies. She is widely expected to replace the unpopular education secretary, Eddie Ng.

But Mrs Lam’s reforms will do little to ease older students’ political frustrations, including their resentment of the Communist Party’s insistence on “patriotism”. Last month the main advisory body to the parliament in Beijing urged its members from Hong Kong to visit schools in the territory to talk about “national conditions” (or the party’s achievements, as many in the territory interpret that phrase to mean). It said this would help to curb pro-independence sentiment in Hong Kong. More likely is that students will grumble even louder.