Civic and moral education | ‘One needs to love the country rationally and critically’

It’s not the first time that patriotic education raises controversy. In Sept. 2012 thousands of protesters gathered in HK protesting against the plan to introduce “Moral and National Education” in schools

Macau delegates’ joint proposal to Beijing of strengthening youth national education has sparked concerns over “brainwashing” in local society. Local scholar and educator Teresa Vong suggested that the timing of putting forward such a proposal is unavoidably to generate speculation and panic.
“Overly saying Macau’s youngsters are unpatriotic [is a proposition that] doesn’t hold,” she told the Times. National education, as part of civic education, will be established as one of the mandatory school subjects like mathematics and physical education. Within the next four and half years, all schools in Macau will be implementing this obligatory course, gradually from kindergarten to high school levels starting next fall semester.
“I’m not against implementing mandatory national education. It’s inevitable for every country to promote national education. It’s not a sin to love one’s country, but I oppose proposing it under such a sensitive circumstance,” stressed the scholar.
Seven delegates told the nation’s top advisory body (CPPCC) that they hope the Ministry of Education could collaborate with the Macau’s Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) to compose a national education textbook. A review was called for on the current teaching materials to foster “moral quality, legal concepts and patriotism,” drawing on Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.
“Macau has a more standardized national education than Hong Kong. About sixty percent of local students are studying in the patriotic or pro-establishment schools,” indicated the scholar. “All Macau’s eighth graders are required to join in military training, which is also regarded as a type of national education.”
The educator indicated that “patriotic education should be established on the basis of emotions, whereas simply chanting slogans doesn’t mean the children can reach that emotional level.”
“It will be brainwashing if they teach it in a way of druming it in, rather than fostering students to think about their own relation with the country. The way to handle the teaching mustn’t be just one way. One needs to love the country rationally and critically, to learn not only its good side but also its bad. All those need to be included in the textbook, and what we are most concerned about here is in what way they will teach that” she stressed.
Since 2005, DSEJ has implemented a series of textbooks complied by the Beijing Normal University’s center for citizenship and moral education, said the academic. The city further included national education into a mandatory curriculum framework being promulgated last year.
“It’s confusing why the delegates proposed that now, as Macau has already been implementing all these. Do they know it [national education]’s happening? It’s obvious in the timing that they might want the youngsters to be quiet and obedient, to abide by laws without asking for reasons. But that runs counter to the purpose of civic education,” she questioned.
Regarding these concerns, the Secretary for Culture and Social Affairs, Alexis Tam, assured the public that “there’s no need to be concerned that ‘brainwashing education’ would appear.”
“I think national education is a very good [form of] education and I’ve heard from many residents and associations that Macau society has this demand,” he told the media yesterday after a plenary meeting of the Youth Affairs Committee he leads.
The secretary further explained that “it will be implemented in a way that lets our local students have more independent thinking rather than letting them grow up in a greenhouse.” “The DSEJ and tertiary education departments will outreach to schools how to conduct the national education,” he added.
The DSEJ officials also explained that the mandatory curriculum framework is applicable to all local schools, whether they are public, private-run, Catholic-based or international. However, each school has its own autonomy over what textbook to choose and how they will teach the subject.
“Civic and moral education is a mandatory subject and we will formulate the goals for each educational level to reach. Apart from that, the government won’t intervene,” clarified Wong Kin Mou, educational and research resources department head. Wong said that patriotic education will not become an independent subject and that schools will not be requested to use a unified textbook in the future.