Language and Education in Colonial Hong Kong

Recent readings:

1. Anthony Sweeting, 'Education in Hong Kong: Histories, Mysteries and Myths', History of Education,Vol. 36, No. 1, January 2007, pp. 89–108.
2. Anthony Sweeting and Edward Vickers, 'Language and the History of Colonial Education: The case of Hong Kong', Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 41, Issue 1, 2007, pp. 1–40.
3. Po King Choi, '"The best students will learn English": ultra-utilitarianism and linguistic imperialism in education in post-1997 Hong Kong', Journal of Education Policy, November–December 2003, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 673–694.

Quote from 1:

"Judith Brown, in her Epilogue to Volume IV of The Oxford History of the British Empire (OHBE), states that of the legacies of the British Empire, the ‘most significant of all is the legacy of the school and the university’, and in particular the role of English as an international language. (p. 706)" (p. 1)

"Alastair Pennycook, who, in English and the Discourses of Colonialism and elsewhere, goes further than Said in arguing that the English language itself is inherently ‘imperialist’, and that ‘discourses of colonialism’ adhering to English represent the most fundamental and pernicious legacy of British colonialism." (p. 4)

"British cultural and linguistic ‘hegemony’in Hong Kong appears far more contested, fragile and ephemeral than he would maintain—and more a product of collaborative negotiation than of metropolitan imposition." (p. 5)

"the report of the Committee on Chinese Studies in 1953. This report laid down the parameters for the curriculum for Chinese language, literature and history in local schools, ensuring, according to Pennycook, that these would be biased towards pre-modern topics and literary works and imbued with conservative values. Thus he concludes that ‘the curriculum followed by students today . . . is closely linked to the curriculum formulated in the 1920s, a curriculum developed then to counter Chinese nationalism in the schools, redeveloped in the 1950s to counter communist influences and still held in place in the 1990s as part of British colonial rule’." (p. 8)

"It is perhaps worth remembering that the very first example of nationaleducational standardisation in Britain—the institution of civil service examinationsin the 1860s—was inspired by Chinese precedent. It is no trivial coincidence thatWhitehall civil servants have traditionally been referred to as ‘mandarins’." (p. 10)

"although half-yearly prizes were offered to pupils showing the greatestproficiency in the English language, these prizes were only $1 invalue, as compared with $1.50 for ‘greatest proficiency in ScriptureKnowledge’ and $1.50 for greatest proficiency ‘in the Four Books ofConfucianism’.35 If money talks, its message, at least in Hong Kongduring the 1850s, does not seem to have been based on linguisticimperialism." (p. 13)

"In thepost-war period, both colonial governments and the new international development agencies sought to promote what were felt to bemore efficient and effective policies, geared to providing vocational instruction that would be of practical use to students when they left school, and to encouraging the use of local vernaculars in place of ‘colonial’ languages. The problem with this was that where ademand for education existed, it was usually for precisely the sort of academic, English-medium schooling that Western agencies andcolonial administrators now deemed inappropriate." (p. 23)

"The dilemma as far as language in schools was concernedwas between the ‘use value’ of Cantonese, and the ‘exchange value’of English...for parents such arguments [educational effectiveness of Cantonese] were outweighed by the economic value of the command of English as a marketable skill both within Hong Kong and overseas." (p. 27)

"Hong Kong’s colonial history has created a system of schooling in which English-medium education has come to be regarded both as an avenue to better life chances and as a marker of social status for the local middle class. Thus the preservation of this system has come tobe perceived by influential elements not only within the local business community, but also within the local middle class more broadly, as a vested interest to be defended at all costs. The resilience of thediscourse concerning the superiority of English has more to do with the disproportionate influence of the wealthy English-educatedmiddleclasses within Hong Kong’s undemocratic establishment (both beforeand after 1997) than it does to do with any ‘linguistic imperialism...’ (p. 34)

Quote from 2:

"Quasi-classical Colonialism...it seems reasonable to claim that the closest Hong Kong came to what might be described as ‘ClassicalColonialism’ was in the first seven decades or so of British rule and, even more strikingly, during the brief Japanese occupation of the territory." (p. 91)

"Education in Hong Kong for much of the early twentieth century26 merits the designation of ‘applied colonialism’ in order to emphasize the importance of the main exogenous and endogenous factors influencing developments...Particularly in the years from about 1912 to 1941 and 1945 to about 1955." (p. 96)

"We hold our position in Hong Kong because the Chinese are satisfied to be ruled by us so long as we do not make our yoke heavy and are willing to listen to their views and meet their wishes in matters that affect them nearly. They do not like us, but are passively loyal. If we interfere with their customs to an extent which they believe to be unreasonable, this passive acquiescence will be turned into more or less active opposition." Sir Edward Stubbs, Governor of Hong Kong to Grindle (semi-official). CO129/478, 16 September 1922, 764–66. (p. 97)

"Applied De-colonization...Hong Kong gradually gained a type of applied de-colonization that included financial autonomy and considerable freedom in matters concerning such domestic issues as housing, health and education." (p. 100-1)

"Postcolonialism...the postcolonial period literally started at midnight on 1 July 1997,when China resumed sovereignty." (p. 103)

"Medical doctors, bankers, generalist career civil servants and businessmen, for example, seemed to carry more weight in recent and current policy-making than professional educationists." (p. 107)