Talk of unfair subvention for ESF ignores the fact HK has two official languages

[from Education Post Mailbag - 15 November 2008]

Recently we saw yet another letter from Pierce Lam slamming the ESF's government subvention ("We need school system that is fair for all", South China Morning Post, November 7).

It appears Mr Lam has a serious chip on his shoulder about the ESF and colonialism in general. In a letter to Time magazine, he wrote: "A city can never be great if the majority of its population is taught that everything good is foreign. The cosmopolitan city glamorised in your report is a city of cultural orphans brainwashed into becoming submissive to myriad foreign cultures that have been filtered through a colonial sieve."

As a parent with three children at ESF schools it costs me HK$25,000 a month to educate my children. That sum will increase when the other two move to college from junior school. All my children were born in Hong Kong.

Mr Lam insinuates "ESF's admission policy explicitly discriminates against Cantonese speakers. Cantonese speakers have only a token presence in ESF schools". Hogwash. I suggest he stands outside Sha Tin Junior School and college when the schools close for the day and plays "spot the gweilo" among the sea of Asian student faces, most of whom speak Cantonese at home.

The ESF is a foundation based on statute. Its objectives are to own, manage, administer and operate schools offering, without regard to race or religion, a modern liberal education through the medium of the English language to boys and girls who are able to benefit from such an education. The medium of instruction is specifically enshrined within the laws of Hong Kong.

He refers to a judgment 40 years ago: "In a Belgian linguistics case (1968), a European court held that `the right to education does not mean the right to be provided education in a language of the parent's choice and the right to education is confined to the right of access to educational establishments existing at a given time'."

What he deliberately omits is the fact that Hong Kong has two official languages, English and Chinese, and that they are spoken throughout Hong Kong and the local business world. In Belgium, whose official languages are Dutch and French, there were in 1968 specific unilingual areas where people spoke either French or Dutch, but not both. Legco studied this judgment and it can be found at www.legco.gov.hk/yr06-07/english/bc/bc52/papers/bc520228cb2-1152-2-e.pdf

Moreover, here is a link to The Right to Education and Minority Language by Fernand de Varennes. He discusses the Belgian and Cyprus cases in a modern day interpretation of the 40-year-old judgment: www.eumap.org/journal/features/2004/minority_education/edminlang

This learned lecturer opined: "Until recently, particularly in Europe, there has been the widespread - and mistaken - belief that there is absolutely no right to education in a minority language under traditional human rights treaties ... Many have referred to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Belgian Linguistic Case [6] as concluding that the state has the absolute and unqualified right to determine the official language of instruction in public schools and denied that a right to education in a particular language existed under Article 2 of Protocol (the right to education), even in combination with the prohibition of discrimination (article 14).

"This interpretation is, in fact, an incorrect reading of the decision, since what the European Court actually said was that, given the social and political context at the time in Belgium, the overall linguistic regime, which mainly included monolingual Dutch (and French) language territories for purposes of public schooling, was not arbitrary and therefore was not discriminatory."

Mr Lam states: "The World Economic Forum's global competitiveness report 2005/06 shows that Hong Kong is 28th - below Taiwan (fifth), Singapore (sixth) and South Korea (17th) - partly because of government inadequacy in handling matters impartially ... Subvented ESF schools offer new immigrants who are native-English-speakers unquestioned admission at the expense of native students. Withdrawal of the ESF's subvention will improve Hong Kong's competitiveness by making it a fairer place. In Singapore all children are taught in English in primary school and at the next levels with their mother-tongue teaching in Chinese, Malay or Tamil ranked second." I suggest he does a Wikipedia search on education in Singapore.

"Immigrants", as he calls us, can only come here if they have a talent not locally available and beneficial to Hong Kong society. He also omits the rights of locally born children.
Hong Kong-born children of permanent and tax-paying residents of any ethnic race should be entitled to education in either of the two official languages here with the same subventions as provided to DSS schools.

The ESF provides a valuable and necessary service in this "Asia World City".

JAMES MIDDLETON, Yuen Long