Hong Kong secondary students may soon be schooled in ‘Xi Jinping Thought’
Curriculum guidelines recommend teaching Xi Jinping thought in a new subject
Originally published on Global Voices
Hong Kong Book Fair 2022. Photo: Peter Lee/HKFP.
This report was originally published in Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on August 1, 2024. An edited version is published below as part of a content partnership agreement.
The political ideology of China’s leader Xi Jinping could soon be taught to Hong Kong secondary school students, according to curriculum guidelines for new subject Citizenship, Economics and Society.
The new subject, which will be introduced to first-year secondary students when the school year starts next month, highlights the teaching of national security and national identity. On Wednesday, the Education Bureau issued curriculum guidelines for the subject, stating that it should include content related to patriotic education. The document reads:
[Patriotic Education] helps students understand the development of our country and the importance of the close relationship between the Mainland and Hong Kong to the development of our society, thereby cultivating students’ sense of nationhood, affection for our country and sense of national identity.
Citing China’s patriotic education law, which came into effect on January 1 and covers Hong Kong and Macau as well as mainland China, the guidelines provide five “examples” of topics for students to learn as part of patriotic education. Among them were: Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, broadly known as Xi Jinping Thought; socialism with Chinese characteristics; and national security and national defence.
Xi Jinping Thought is recommended for third-year secondary students as part of a module called “Our Country’s Political Structure and Its Participation in International Affairs.”
The push for patriotic education has been part of Xi’s ideological campaign, as he has sought to unify and educate members of the Communist Party of China according to his doctrine.
When asked how much students should learn about Xi Jinping Thought, Ranny Yau, the principle of TWGHs Kap Yan Directors’ College and chairman of a committee responsible for reviewing the new subject, told Ming Pao on Thursday that junior secondary school students were expected to know more about China.
“It is unnecessary to single out and highlight some content that may worry teachers,” Yau said in Cantonese.
Xi Jinping Thought was added to the curriculum from primary schools to graduate programmes in mainland China from 2021.
The government announced it would replace Life and Society with a new subject named Citizenship, Economics and Society in 2022.
A document about the Citizenship, Economics and Society subject handed out by the Education Bureau in October 2022 lacked a learning objective including in the Life and Society curriculum: “to understand, appreciate, respect and reflect on the values and attitudes that underpin the local society, including rights and responsibilities, freedom, rule of law, social justice, democracy.”