English as medium of instruction - I

There is a recent posting on the medium of instruction in discuss.com.hk.The matter surrounding the discussion was that whether Chinese should be employed during teaching of a subject (other than English) in a school where the "medium of instruction" is English.

a short history of MOI in Hong Kong

a large proportion of this historical account was derived from [1].

It all started in 1978 - when universal education in Hong Kong was in its first year of life. It was the year that all Hong Kong children, regardless of their socioeconomic background, were granted 9 years of free education.

The curriculum then, was terribly difficult even for students nowadays. The 1953 Joint primary 6 examination was famous and it was well-circulated on the internet. A copy was donated by a retired teacher to a museum in Hong Kong (三棟屋博物館).

The questions were as follows:

一至四題任答三題

(一)斯巴達和雅典是怎樣的國家，試分述之。
(二)試述法國革命的起因。
(三)分答下列二題：
   (甲)季候風地帶包括哪些地區？氣候和雨量的情形怎樣？
   (乙)沙漠的成因怎樣？
(四)試把中國和美國的農作方式作一比較。

五至八題任答三題

(五)香港政府的立法機關和司法機關及行政機關其組織與職權是怎樣的？
(六)香港政府何以要設華民政務司署？這個機關辦些什麼事情？
(七)政府為什麼要對人民徵稅？是不是隨意徵收？須經什麼機關通過才能實行？人民對政府估定的稅額不同意時有什麼補救方法？
(八)聯合國何時成立？會址設於何處？為實現「天下一家」的最高理想，聯合國應做些什麼事情？

九至十一題任答二題

(九)試以圖及文字解釋潮汐的原因。
(十)維他命有哪幾種？每種有什麼功用？各種維他命在食物中之含量如何？
(十一)普通蚊與瘧蚊有什麼區別，瘧蚊怎樣傳染瘧疾？

This is terribly difficult even for junior secondary school students nowadays. Given such examination paper, one can imagine how elitist the education then was. The less prestigious schools were then harbouring a lot of students from lower socio-economic status who basically had completely inadequate English competency to study the curriculum in English.


And expectedly, the Education Commission sought help from UK. The panel of experts then recommended that:

...is for the Government to impose Cantonese as the medium of instruction in FI-III of all secondary schools...

and also

...to leave alone the small number of school which have been genuinely successful in using English as a medium of instruction...

The idea then was to introduce English progressively throughout junior secondary education. Then, a policy called "positive discrimination" evolved. It was a policy such that schools teaching in Chinese could brand themselves as such. The problem that follow was of course - very few school followed this recommendation. The reason was simple - you need good input to make good output, and better students tends to go to schools that teach in English.

With failure of the policy, a mandatory scheme was then introduced to categorize STUDENTS, first, into Group I-III (Ability to learn in I - both EMI and CMI schools, II - CMI schools only, III - EMI schools only) and then those school that couldn't get enough of EMI-capable students are forced to use Chinese as the medium of instruction.


[1] http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~hkier/content/document/OP/Op64.pdf