In order to help kids “cultivate habits and confidence” in singing it, teachers at a third school have received requests.
After China clamped down on the city’s pro-democracy movement in 2020, Hong Kong increased the emphasis on “patriotic” schooling.
The Hong Kong and Macau Lutheran Church Primary School pupils’ voices, according to officials, were “soft and weak” and needed to be reinforced. Instructors at Yan Chai Hospital Lim Por Yen Secondary School were instructed to “assist students in forming the habit of loudly and collectively singing the national anthem.”
Following its inspection of elementary and secondary schools, the city’s education bureau published a number of reports that included these remarks.
At least six of the 20 schools whose inspection results are available on the education bureau’s website were counseled to improve their curriculum with a strong emphasis on patriotism.
Some schools were also commended in the reports for sending students to mainland China and for their students’ self-assurance in flying the national flag.
China enacted a regulation in January mandating that businesses conduct business with “patriotic education” as part of their operations and that schools, including those in Hong Kong, incorporate it into their curricula. Although the definition is ambiguous, the curriculum aims to advance the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership and philosophy.
