In early April, the Hongkong Education Bureau confirmed that four core subjects of the senior secondary curriculum – Chinese and English languages, mathematics and liberal studies – would be “optimised”, in order to address Beijing’s concerns. Examples of the amendments are: the Hong Kong history exam paper skirts questions on Sino-Japanese relations after last year’s row; "liberal studies" has been renamed as “citizenship and social development”, which is regarded by schools as a new subject, as it halves curriculum time, graded by a simple pass/fail, and involves a heavy emphasis on national education, including a compulsory school visit to mainland China; the citizenship subject, “Hong Kong today” is now called “Hong Kong under one country, two systems”; and “Modern China” becomes “Our country since reform and opening up”. For the Chinese language, experts say plans by the Bureau to abolish the aural paper would reduce opportunities for students to develop communication skills, while the pared-down English-language subject could affect their skills in that language. Surveys show also that around 10 per cent of Hongkong school children intend to leave for schools in U.K.
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