Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, at a media session before attending a Legislative Council Panel on Education meeting today (March 13):

Reporter: Mr Ng, with the mentioning of national education in the CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) report, how will the Education Bureau follow up on that and how would you address concerns about brainwashing, you know, about a national order from state leaders asking the Hong Kong Government to brainwash schoolchildren?

Secretary for Education: You are referring to the debate on "Hong Kong independence". Let me just repeat the Government's position. We are against anything relating to "Hong Kong independence" because it is in violation of the Basic Law, and in violation of the "one country, two systems" that we are believing in. As a matter of principle, we should not allow this "Hong Kong independence", either its advocacy or its activities, to happen in any form any way in schools. That will be our position.

     We recognise that some schools, when launching the Basic Law education and the understanding about the national development, may engage some of the external professional bodies in launching the programme, to better understand the Basic Law and so on. For that matter, we welcome indeed all those who are very experienced and who are supporters (of) and have deep knowledge about the Basic Law and who are in support of the Basic Law spirit and substance and to be engaged according to schools' needs. That will be our position. Thank you.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Monday, March 13, 2017
Issued at HKT 17:59

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