Hong Kong

Secondary schools in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) will change the name of the "life and society" course to "citizenship, economics and society," and strengthen national security education and the understanding of the Constitution and the Basic Law, said the Hong Kong Education Bureau (EDB) on Wednesday.

In a statement sent to local schools, the EDB encouraged them to trial the revision from September of next year and recommended that the new curriculum be fully implemented in the first grade of secondary schools from September 2024.

Categorized under "personal, social and humanity education" in Hong Kong schools, the "life and society" course has been in the curriculum of general studies for more than 10 years. As the course is renamed, it will also reorganize its 29 units into 12 units and enhance education on China's national conditions.

In the "the governance of Hong Kong SAR" unit taught in secondary schools, for example, the newly added content includes the Constitution and the Basic Law forming the constitutional basis of Hong Kong and entrusting the central government with overall power of administration over the region, and how to understand the national security law for Hong Kong as well as the improved electoral system of the city.

Through the revised course, students are also expected to understand the country's economic achievements and the impact of world trade on the economic development of the mainland and Hong Kong.

The EDB said the revised course discarded some content that students already learned in primary schools to reduce duplication in line with the needs of curriculum development. More topics such as "media and information literacy" and "improving the electoral system" can also be added after the deletion so as the content becomes more relevant to social developments.

The "life and society" course has been implemented since 2010. After five years of review and revision, the new course outline was submitted to the Curriculum Development Council at the end of July, 2022.

As the SAR government ramps up efforts to strengthen national security education among young students, a patriotic education related institution established by the largest teachers union in the city was officially launched in July.

In June, the EDB announced the first batch of textbooks applicable to the subject of Citizenship and Social Development, with six sets of textbooks from five publishers selected. With designated textbooks and a detailed syllabus issued by the EDB, some teachers will no longer be able to convey their wrong and poisonous political views to students when teaching this course. Such a situation, previously much-criticized by the Hong Kong education community, will be changed, a textbook reviewer told the Global Times previously.

The Global Times