A flag raising team from a primary school perform after the first national flag raising competition in Hong Kong in September,2022.Photo:IC

Newly joined teachers and those who eye on a promotion in all the publicly-funded schools in Hong Kong are required to join a study tour to the Chinese mainland, Secretary for Education told local media on Saturday. 

The SAR's Education Bureau later confirmed with the Global Times that the bureau will pay close attention to the epidemic situation and border resumption to unveil details of the tour. 

The recently unveiled policy address by Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee pointed out that it should further enhance the national education, new teachers and those who will get promotion in all the publicly funded schools have to join the study tour, which will take place within two years, Choi Yuk-lin, Secretary for Education, was quoted as saying in media reports on Saturday. 

Each tour is primarily planned for three to four days with the aim of learning the country's development and the overall situation, so that those teachers will be able to introduce the country to students in a correct way, the media reports said. 

Enhancing national education is a major part in the policy address of Lee, who told the Legislative Council that they will enhance the adoption of a multi-pronged and coordinated approach in schools to promote national education within and beyond the classroom. He also referred to the mainland study tour plan by saying that newly joined teachers in publicly funded schools and teachers aspiring for promotion in public sector schools will be required to participate in the tours, and serving teachers will be offered more study opportunities in the mainland to understand the development of the country.

About 780 publicly funded primary and secondary schools have established over 2,100 sister school pairs with their mainland counterparts, Lee said in the policy address on Wednesday. 

"The Education Bureau is paying close attention to the epidemic situation and border resumption between Hong Kong and the mainland with quarantine-free arrangement, and will announce the details of the tours in good time," a spokesperson of the bureau told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Lawrence Tang Fei, a lawmaker who is also the vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, said such arrangement is reasonable as for many years, principals of local schools have to participate in such training courses in the mainland, which is now extending into newly joined teachers and those who eye on promotion. 

"Those training not only include the national education but also the training of teaching," he said. Integrating the exchange of learning the national situation into the teacher training and promotion is reasonable "as in Hong Kong, we do not rely on only one discipline to promote national education, technically, all the disciplines could be related to the national education, " Tang noted. 

He also noted that he learned the project will start as soon as the next school year, which means in September 2023. "It means all the newly joined teachers and those who plan the promotion need to finish relevant work before taking their posts," Tang said.