Hong Kong society has enjoyed peace, order and stability since the National Security Law took effect on June 30 last year. Meanwhile, opposition politicians who openly advocated Hong Kong independence and incited illegal activities aimed at messing up Hong Kong, if not in prison already, have either laid low or fled overseas from criminal justice in Hong Kong, except those political demagogues and plotters behind the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (HKPTU), a highly politicized teacher association and a staunch member of the opposition camp in Hong Kong.

Those career brain-washers, operating under the mask of educators, seem determined to go against popular consensus on education reform, particularly the content and design of the Liberal Studies subject. They are still trying to derail the planned reform in the subject by vilifying the reform move with various specious arguments, which can hardly disguise their aim of continuing to exploit the defects in the design of the Liberal Studies curriculum to fill students with unconstitutional, unlawful and pernicious ideas or notions on politics to advance their own ideologies and political agenda. If hell-bent to turn innocent students into political pawns ready to break Hong Kong law and even undermine national security, the HKPTU is on a criminal path that will end in a disastrous way for sure.

The HKPTU and other political demagogues must keep in mind that no responsible government in the world allows teachers’ trade groups to compose subversive teaching materials in violation of relevant laws to advance their own partisan interests or political agenda. And more often than not such a trade group would be banned and its leaders incriminated when they are caught red-handed

The decidedly anti-Beijing and anti-SAR government trade group reportedly plans to launch soon an online lecture designed to fan opposition to the Liberal Studies curriculum reform proposed by the SAR government. They have been in an all-out campaign to vilify the reform proposal, smearing the move as an attempt to “murder the subject” or “killing the soul of the subject”. It also accuses the Education Bureau of “putting politics above education” by replacing the Liberal Studies Curriculum Review Board with Liberal Studies Textbooks Professional Consultation Service.

To counter the government, it urges its teacher members to circumvent future regulatory restrictions by adding content deemed “off limits” by government guidelines to Liberal Studies and make the subject their own “heavenly acre”. Obviously the planned online lecture is meant as a pep rally to drum up anti-reform fervor among the HKPTU members as well as average school teachers and students for its own agenda.

Liberal Studies as required learning has become an instrument for brainwashing students with separatist and unlawful notions because many teachers are the HKPTU members, who have compiled teaching materials designed to indoctrinate students with dangerous political mumbo-jumbo at the behest of the demagogues behind the association. After years of “mental conditioning” through adulterated liberal studies, those politically-motivated teachers have succeeded in radicalizing Hong Kong youth: More than 40 percent of the 10,000-plus lawbreakers arrested by police during the 2019 social unrest are students, many of whom are underage, with the youngest at only 11. There is not any other place in the world that has witnessed such jaw-dropping juvenile crime. The HKPTU will go down in history for its notoriety of having successfully destroyed the well-being of thousands of young people for its own political persuasions.

Also known as the “black revolution”, the protracted social unrest triggered waves of violence and criminal vandalism that swept all over Hong Kong for months on end in 2019, forcing the SAR government to ask the central authorities for the ultimate solution, in the form of the National Security Law for the Hong Kong SAR, which was promulgated and took effect on June 30, 2020. Armed with the new law the SAR government has effectively ended violence and social unrest as well as plugged national security loopholes in Hong Kong.

Also thanks to the National Security Law, the SAR government finally launched the long-overdue Liberal Studies curriculum reform, complete with a professional review board to quality check teaching materials for Liberal Studies classes. With government supervision and professional oversight in place, the reformed Liberal Studies curriculum is expected to be back on the right track to achieve the objective it was intended to achieve.

That said, the reform measures may not be enough to stop the HKPTU from poisoning the minds of young students however they can. The online lecture the HKPTU plans to launch is proof the trade group is still obsessed with crossing the “red lines” drawn by the SAR government over Liberal Studies teaching materials and determined to pursue its own political agenda at the expense of the younger generation, through its own brainwashed members of course. The SAR government must figure out ways to effectively prevent the HKPTU members from adding unauthorized content to Liberal Studies classes aimed at defeating the reforms.

The HKPTU boasts around 100,000 members and most of them are teachers working in schools across Hong Kong. Many have been teaching Liberal Studies for years if not decades, and the Education Bureau, presumably out of respect for their professionalism, hardly ever watch teachers in class.

The SAR government is right in deciding to have an overhaul of the subject instead of just focusing on teaching materials. In fact, it is absolutely necessary to require teachers to follow government guidelines on relevant subjects, including methods of instruction and reference materials, preferably with random inspection by school management, which in turn should report to the Education Bureau regularly.

The HKPTU and other political demagogues must keep in mind that no responsible government in the world allows teachers’ trade groups to compose subversive teaching materials in violation of relevant laws to advance their own partisan interests or political agenda. And more often than not such a trade group would be banned and its leaders incriminated when they are caught red-handed. Here’s hoping the HKPTU would stop ruining students’ lives, as it has been, and its own right now before it is too late.

The author is a current affairs commentator. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.