Hong Kong teachers who are suspected of breaching the National Security Law will be referred to law enforcement for follow-up actions in the future, Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said on Sunday.
Yeung’s remarks came after the Education Bureau on Oct 5 announced that a primary teacher was deregistered and banned from teaching after he was found to have advocated Hong Kong independence to pupils in a teaching plan.
Yeung said the teaching plan, which failed to conclude that Hong Kong independence is not in line with the law, put a lot of time and effort to introduce the idea of Hong Kong independence and even asked students to indicate if they approved of it.
On the issue of Hong Kong independence, Yeung added that it is of paramount importance to make it clear to students that separatism is not plausible in the city. According to the law that came into effect on June 30, four types of criminal acts are banned to protect national security. These are secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.
Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said it is of paramount importance to make it clear to students that separatism is not plausible in the city
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During a press briefing on Oct 6, Yeung said that criminal investigation of this case will not be pursued because the incident took place in March 2019, before the National Security Law was enacted.
Though the bureau hasn’t ironed out a plan for teachers suspected of violating the city’s National Security Law, Yeung said a basic principle is that law enforcement will get involved and the Security Bureau will be consulted and informed about such cases.
Currently, Yeung revealed that over 40 cases are still under investigation.
But he promised transparency in dealing with such complaints by listing reasons and facts behind the bureau’s decisions so that the education sector and society understand the yardsticks the bureau uses for making such decisions.
The city’s Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung and former president of the Legislative Council Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai also weighed in on the matter on Sunday, saying it is high time for teachers to respect their inherent duty of guiding students onto the right path, instead of turning campuses into “breeding grounds” of toxic separatism.
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Cheung cautioned that campuses can’t become a hotbed for breeding Hong Kong independence and unlawfulness.
Cheung likened the Education Bureau’s role to that of the gatekeeper while the teachers shall abide by professional ethics, so as to protect students’ interests.
Fan said that the teacher who advocated separatism in the classroom has “betrayed the trust” that the city’s parents have placed in teachers.
Speaking to China Daily on Sunday, Fan said that regardless of the historical, cultural or legal perspective, Hong Kong independence is never a “viable” option and is utterly untenable because the notion itself contravenes the preamble of the Basic Law.
Fan said young minds don’t have enough knowledge to analyze what their teacher says, and it is relatively easy for them to be influenced, so by trying to brainwash his students, who are only 11 to 12 years old, the teacher is using the students’ weakness to his benefit.
“It is clearly lacking professional ethics,” she said.
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Fan also described what happened in Hong Kong during the second half of 2019 as simply “unacceptable”. She said it was heart-wrenching for her to see very young people, ranging from 12 to 14 years old, being involved in the street violence.
These teens should not be there for their own protection, Fan said. “But some of them, I was told, were there because their teachers brought them there.” To safeguard the benefit of our next generation, gatekeeping is necessary, she added.
Instead of instilling the wrong values into the youth, Fan said educators in the city should live up to the expectations placed in them, which are to protect students.
“Freedom of expression or academic freedom is not an excuse for promoting separatism,” she added.
