Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region – 3
Following is a question by the Hon Chu Lap-wai and a written reply by the Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, in the Legislative Council today (February 25):
Question:
In the light of public concerns about patriotic education, last year the Education Bureau (EDB) announced one after another the optimised senior secondary Chinese History and History Curriculum Frameworks, the updates to the Curriculum Framework of National Security Education in Hong Kong and the Curriculum Framework of National Security Education in the Citizenship and Social Development, as well as the implementation of the Primary Humanities starting from the 2025/26 school year with enrichment in the elements of Chinese culture, national history and national geography. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) to implement the aforesaid initiatives, of the total number of training sessions the EDB has conducted for the relevant teachers so far, and the number of participants and total training hours involved; how the authorities will evaluate the effectiveness of such training, and whether the authorities have formulated further plans to enhance the relevant teacher training; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(2) regarding the selection of teachers to teach the aforesaid subjects, whether the authorities have provided or have plans to provide guidance for schools to ensure that the relevant teachers are virtuous and able, possessing both professional knowledge and patriotism, thereby preventing the curriculum from deviating from its original intent; if they have provided or have plans to provide such guidance, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(3) whether it will consider requiring teachers to undergo relevant training and pass an assessment before being permitted to teach subjects related to national education and national security education; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
(4) how it evaluates the effectiveness of implementing national education and national security education in schools to promote patriotic education, and whether it has conducted or has plans to conduct relevant inspections to ensure that schools achieve the objectives of patriotic education in terms of supervision and management, curriculum content and teaching methods; if it has conducted or has plans to conduct inspections, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
The EDB has been adopting a “multi-pronged and co-ordinated” approach to promote patriotic education in recent years. This includes continuously optimising the curriculum, developing learning and teaching resources, providing teacher training, and organising a wide range of engaging life-wide learning activities for students, for supporting schools in a comprehensive, all-round, interdisciplinary, and cross-key stage manner to integrate patriotic education into daily learning and teaching. It aligns with the Patriotic Education Law of the People’s Republic of China, clearly addressing the concerns about patriotic education in society, as well as enabling students to inherit the national spirit and strengthen their sense of nationhood.
Continuously optimising the curriculum to enable students to gain a richer and more comprehensive understanding of various aspects of our country’s development such as history, culture, economy, technology, and political system, as well as national conditions, national geography, the Constitution, the Basic Law, and national security, constitutes a key strategy for schools in promoting patriotic education. Therefore, the EDB announced the updated Curriculum Framework of National Security Education in Hong Kong (Curriculum Framework) and the national security education curriculum frameworks for 27 subjects last year; began to implement Primary Humanities; and announced the optimised curriculum frameworks for senior secondary Chinese History and History, enriching the curriculum with elements related to patriotic education such as Chinese culture, national history, and national geography. This enables students to acquire knowledge of our country, and foster their emotional identification and connection with our country, nurturing them to become good citizens of our country with a strong sense of nationhood from an early age.
The consolidated reply to the question raised by the Hon Chu Lap-wai is as follows:
To promote patriotic education, teachers’ professional competence is of paramount importance. As always, schools would arrange teachers to teach different subjects based on their abilities, expertise, experiences, and qualifications. At the same time, aligning with curriculum optimisation, the EDB continues to provide in-service professional training for teachers to enhance their professional capacity and facilitate curriculum implementation in schools.
Provide professional training to tie in with national security education
To tie in with the announcement of the updated Curriculum Framework and the 27 curriculum frameworks of National Security Education for subjects (covering eight Key Learning Areas (KLAs) and the subject of Citizenship and Social Development) in 2025, the EDB arranged 12 briefing sessions from June 2025 to January 2026 to share with stakeholders, including representatives of school sponsoring bodies, school supervisors, principals and teachers, on the major updates and highlights of the Curriculum Framework and elucidate how the elements of national security education and patriotic education can be incorporated into various KLAs. In addition, in the 2025/26 school year, the EDB provides no less than 1 000 training places on national security education for teachers. From September to December 2025, nearly 160 training activities related to national and national security education were organised across various KLAs and subjects through delivery modes including face-to-face and online courses, study visits, experience sharing sessions, and learning circles, with over 15 600 attendances. These aim to enhance the professional knowledge and competence of teachers of different subjects, reminding them to align with the intended aims of the curriculum for more effective implementation of national security education.
Provide professional training to tie in with Primary Humanities
The newly introduced Primary Humanities has been implemented at Primary 1 and Primary 4 starting from the 2025/26 school year, and will be fully extended to all levels by the 2027/28 school year to strengthen patriotic education from an early age. To facilitate schools in implementing Primary Humanities, the EDB continues to provide diversified teacher training activities, including professional development programmes on national history, national geography, and the latest development of our country, enabling teachers to fully understand the intent and content of the Primary Humanities curriculum, as well as relevant pedagogies. Since the 2023/24 school year, the EDB has offered approximately 32 000 training places for teachers. The EDB also organises the Primary Humanities Learning Circle, allowing teachers to enhance their professional capability through experience exchange, lesson observation activities, and experience-sharing sessions. By January 2026, about 150 primary schools have participated. In addition, the EDB has provided new Primary Humanities Onsite Workshops for all schools in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 school years, with 210 schools participating by January 2026, benefiting approximately 5 600 principals and teachers.
Provide professional training to tie in with the optimised senior secondary Chinese History and History subjects
The optimised senior secondary Chinese History and History curriculum frameworks were announced in October 2025, and the EDB held the school briefing sessions on the curriculum frameworks of the two subjects in the same month, with a total of over 550 participating teachers. The optimised senior secondary Chinese History and History curricula will be implemented in September 2027. The EDB will provide no less than 1 500 teacher training places in the 2026/27 school year. The training programmes will cover areas such as curriculum interpretation, knowledge enrichment, strategies for learning, teaching and assessment, as well as curriculum leadership and planning, to help teachers comprehensively enhance their pedagogical effectiveness and support schools in implementing the optimised curricula.
Promoting patriotic education has become a routine task for schools and a shared responsibility of teaching staff at all levels. Teachers, regardless of the subjects they teach, need to understand national conditions and the latest development of our country so as to help students develop a proper understanding of our country, nurturing a new generation that loves our country and home. The duration of the aforementioned training sessions is about two to three hours each in general, and teachers of relevant subjects can enrol. The EDB collects teachers’ feedback on professional training through questionnaires. The questionnaire results show positive feedback from teachers, and the EDB will continue to optimise teacher professional training with reference to their views.
Test requirement
Starting from the 2023/24 school year, all newly-appointed teachers in publicly-funded schools and kindergartens joining the Kindergarten Education Scheme (including newly-joined teachers and teachers changing schools) are required to obtain a pass result in the Basic Law and National Security Law Test in order to be considered for appointment to ensure that teachers will have a correct and basic understanding of the Basic Law and the Hong Kong National Security Law. Furthermore, starting from the 2020/21 school year, the core training programmes for newly-joined teachers and teachers aspiring for promotion have included contents about the Constitution, the Basic Law, and the Hong Kong National Security Law, with an aim of strengthening teachers’ commitment to the rule of law. In addition, the EDB has organised the Thematic Course on “Reinforcing the Rule of Law” for principals and teachers, helping them to better understand Hong Kong’s constitutional status and legal system, as well as their responsibility in safeguarding national security.
Providing specific administration guidelines for schools
The fundamentals of national security education are to develop in students a sense of belonging to the country, and an affection for the Chinese people, which are inseparable from patriotic education. Upon implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the EDB has issued detailed administration and education guidelines to schools in a timely manner, requiring schools to establish school-based mechanisms and formulate appropriate measures in accordance with their school-based circumstances and needs, with a view to preventing and suppressing acts and activities that endanger or are detrimental to national security. In addition, schools are required to submit annual reports and work plans to the EDB to report on the implementation of school-based measures on safeguarding national security and promoting national security education. Besides, the EDB will continue to review the implementation status and effectiveness of the relevant measures through various channels, such as school visits and daily communications with schools, while providing timely advice and instructions as needed.
Ongoing school inspections
Additionally, in recent years, the EDB has strengthened focus inspections on national education, with an emphasis on assessing schools’ planning, implementation and evaluation in areas such as leadership and co-ordination of national security education and promotion of Chinese culture, the history and geography of our country and life-wide learning activities (including Mainland exchanges). Feedback and suggestions for improvement are provided to facilitate continuous school development. As in previous years, the EDB will consolidate findings from school inspections each school year, and regularly share inspection findings and promote good practices on the effective implementation of national education through the adoption of a whole school approach, thereby enhancing the quality and effectiveness of national education.
With strong support from the EDB and proactive implementation by schools, patriotic education has been smoothly promoted in schools. A whole-school participation approach has been adopted to plan and promote the related work, including integrating patriotic education with subject learning content, organising more diverse life-wide learning activities, and making good use of the campus environment to create a conducive atmosphere. Schools’ efforts in promoting patriotic education are commendable, and the results are evident to all.