Schools have the responsibility to play a good gate-keeper role and enhance the sensitivity of teachers and students to national security, the Education Bureau said today in response to media enquiries.
Whilst safeguarding national security is the Government’s responsibility as well as the obligation of the whole community of Hong Kong, the bureau noted that safeguarding national security is also part and parcel of the routine school work in promoting national security education.
The bureau also said it has adopted a “multipronged and co-ordinated” approach to strengthen students’ understanding of Chinese culture, the Constitution and the Basic Law, and their awareness of law-abiding in promoting patriotic education.
Detailed administrative and educational guidelines have been issued to schools, requiring them to establish school-based mechanisms and formulate appropriate measures according to their own circumstances and needs to implement various tasks related to safeguarding national security and national security education.
In addition, the bureau provided schools with an updated “National Security: School Self-evaluation Checklist” in April, which sets out suggestions of refinement and good practices of different areas of work, covering national security work planning, monitoring mechanisms, learning and teaching and related resources, school activities, personnel management and training, and home-school co-operation, in order to effectively prevent and suppress acts and activities that endanger or are detrimental to national security.
The bureau remarked that schools offering non-local curricula also have the responsibility to help their students, regardless of their ethnicity and nationality, acquire a correct and objective understanding and appreciation of the concept of national security and the National Security Law as well as the duty to cultivate a law-abiding spirit among their students. It elaborated that these schools should devise and continuously review relevant strategies and measures in light of their school-based circumstances and needs, with a view to maintaining a safe and orderly learning environment and promoting students’ effective learning and healthy development.
