Education Education is the key to the future of Hong Kong. The government is committed to maintaining and upgrading the quality of education at all levels. All children aged between six and 15 have access to free, universal basic education. Major developments over the past year include: The promotion of mother-tongue teaching (i.e. in Cantonese); The establishment of a $5 billion (US$640 million) Quality Education Fund to promote quality and innovation in the school sector; Increased use of information technology in schools; Upgrading the teaching and learning environment; Enhancing the professional quality of principals and teachers. Of all policy initiatives, the promotion of mother-tongue teaching has perhaps generated the most debate in Hong Kong and overseas. Mother-tongue teaching, regarded world-wide as the most effective medium, will be adopted in most public secondary schools from the 1998/99 Secondary 1 intake. The policy is not new - it has been a government objective since the early 1980s - and Cantonese has been the medium of instruction in most public primary schools for many years. What is new is that English medium of instruction will only be allowed in those public sector secondary schools which meet certain criteria in regards to student language proficiency, teacher capability and support services. The overriding objective in the promotion of mother-tongue teaching is to increase the ability of students to understand what they are being taught and their capacity to express ideas and opinions in language that comes naturally and is easy to understand and comprehend. The policy has been wrongly interpreted as placing less importance on English. In fact, the opposite is the case. A new programme has been launched to recruit 750 native-speaking English teachers as part of a package of measures to provide additional resources to those schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction. Also with effect from the 1998/99 school year, Putonghua will become a core subject in public primary and secondary schools on a gradual and expanding basis starting with Primary One, Secondary One and Secondary Four. Hong Kong's reunification with the Mainland, and the increasing importance of Putonghua in the region, reinforces the need for Hong Kong's citizens to be able to communicate in this language. The government's language policy is to enable students to be biliterate (written Chinese and English) and trilingual (fluent in Cantonese, Putonghua and English), which will enhance their chances in the job market as well as boosting Hong Kong's reputation and competitiveness as an international business centre. Last updated: June 1998