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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session after visiting the People's Food Bank run by St James' Settlement this afternoon (July 26):
Reporter: Mrs Lam, even the Professional Teachers' Union is calling on its members to join the march, so why do you say there's a consensus on the issue? And actually there are still a lot of arguments concerning the teaching materials, for example whether the June 4th massacre should be included.
Chief Secretary for Administration: There is no teaching material promulgated by the Education Bureau yet. What the Education Bureau has promulgated in April this year, after years of preparation and full consultation last year, was guidelines - guidelines for the curriculum of this subject called Moral and National Education. As I said, there has been very broad-based support for the introduction of this subject into the school curriculum.
The schools have been given sufficient period to prepare for the introduction of this subject. That's why I emphasise again that in the original plan of the Education Bureau, there has always been this sufficient preparatory period, or what they call a three-year initiation period, for individual schools to decide when to introduce this subject into the school curriculum according to their readiness. There is no sort of mandatory requirement that all the schools in Hong Kong have to do it this September at the same time.
We respect the schools, and we believe that the school authorities and the teachers are in the best position to work out the teaching materials, the approaches and so on in order to fulfil this general aspiration that society at large and many school authorities and parents alike do want their children to go through this moral education and national education to build up their understanding of the country and also to adopt this independent thinking, because that would benefit them lifelong, not only during the education period.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, July 26, 2012
Issued at HKT 19:05
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