Medium of Instruction

The government's language policy is to enable students to be biliterate (to
master written Chinese and English) and trilingual (to speak fluent
Cantonese, Putonghua and English). To achieve this, the government has
for many years been promoting mother-tongue teaching in schools, since
this is recognised world-wide as the most effective medium of
instruction. Chinese is the medium of instruction in most primary schools,
with English taught as a subject from Primary 1. A few primary schools
use English as the language of instruction. Many schools teach Putonghua
as a separate subject or during after-school activities.

In September 1997, the government encouraged all local public sector
secondary schools to adopt Chinese as the medium of instruction, starting
with their Secondary 1 intake in the 1998-99 school year and progressing
each year to a higher level of secondary education. Only schools
satisfying certain criteria regarding students' language ability, teacher
capability and support services will be allowed to use, or continue to use,
English as the medium of instruction. To help them choose secondary
schools most suited to their children's language ability, parents will be
informed of their children's grouping and the medium of instruction
adopted by individual schools.

In the 1997-98 school year, 77 secondary schools used Chinese for all
subjects except English language. This figure will increase to about 300 in
the 1998-99 school year. Measures are being taken to raise students'
English standard. A new programme is launched to recruit native-speaking
English teachers for secondary schools. Secondary schools using Chinese
as the medium of instruction will also be given additional English teachers.

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