February 24th, 2009
The Cantonese conundrum: Hong Kong’s English
China: The Malaysian Insider reports that the long-running and often bitter row over Hong Kong’s mother-tongue policy has taken a new turn, with the government set to ease restrictions on the use of English in the classroom. Currently, only 114 of more than 400 secondary schools in Hong Kong are allowed to conduct classes in English. In a proposal submitted to lawmakers last month, about 80 more secondary schools could be given the choice to switch to English. That is a significant U-turn on the controversial policy implemented 11 years ago, which ordered these schools to use only Cantonese — the city’s mother tongue — as their medium, erasing English from their classrooms except for teaching it as a second language.
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