Education | Standardized history textbook adopted by more grades

The standardized history textbook launched by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) has been adopted by more grades in local secondary schools, according to Wong Kin Mou, Head of the Department of Education Research and Resources.
The textbook was launched and initially adopted in 2018 as a material for the compulsory subject in the first grade of middle school and for all grades in high school. This September, the DSEJ launched another version of this history book, which is said to be more appropriate for the second grade of middle school and all high schools as material for selective courses, according to Wong.
Over half of secondary schools are using this new textbook as selective course material, while as many as 90% are using this or the older version. There are schools in Macau that still have not adopted this history book due to the instruction language of the schools.
The history book, which is co-written by the DSEJ and People’s Education Press of mainland China, was scrutinized by the public in 2016 after doubts surfaced over how it would treat controversial episodes in recent Chinese history.
Mainland history textbooks are often accused of disguising and rewriting the history of the Chinese Communist Party in modern China, or of ignoring the man-made disasters and struggles caused by the Chinese Communist Party.
The issue became charged after it was announced that the textbook was planned to be comprehensively rolled out across Macau schools.
In 2018, the textbook was under the spotlight once again due to its depiction of the Portuguese as perpetrators of “illegal smuggling” and “bribery” during the 16th century.
Previously, some local schools doubted the accuracy of the new history textbook.
“In the past, [history] textbooks published by other regions did not consider the needs of our [Macau’s] demands for the course, nor did they include historical content concerning Macau,” said Wong. “This time, we published this textbook very much targeting [the history related to Macau].”
Wong said that schools have been giving positive feedback to the DSEJ concerning the new history book.
“From the reactions of schools and teachers, they see that it [the book] helped them because, in the past, when this textbook did not exist and when they talked about Macau history, they needed to spend extra time looking for supplemental materials. Now, the textbook includes Macau history,” said Wong.
Recently, during the weekly Hong Kong protests, popular mainland Weibo official accounts, suspected of being run by the mainland government, praised Macau for “using exactly the same history textbook as mainland China.” The accounts thus suggested that the reason why Hong Kong youngsters are protesting while Macau youngsters do not lies in the adoption or not of the history textbook.