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The Emergence of Chinese History as an Independent Subject (1945–74) 53 3 The Emergence of Chinese History as an Independent Subject (1945–74) Chapter 2 gave an overview of politics and society in Hong Kong from 1945–2005, and of how political and socio-economic forces affected education in general, and Chinese History in particular. This chapter analyses the development of Chinese History in depth from 1945 until 1974, when Chinese middle schools and AngloChinese schools finally adopted the same Chinese History syllabus. It was during this period that Chinese History emerged, and consolidated its status, as an independent subject. The analysis is concerned specifically with: the curriculum development process for Chinese History; the aims and content of the curriculum, which were formulated during this process; and the impact of the curriculum on teaching, learning and examinations. This analysis can enhance our understanding of the influence of the local subject community on the making of the Chinese History curriculum during this initial phase. THE CURRICULUM FOR F1–5 The Curriculum Development Process (F1–5) During the 1960s, Chinese History emerged as a separate school subject, firstly at junior secondary level, and later also at senior secondary level. At that time, the Advisory Inspectorate of the ED was responsible for administering all subjects, and there were subject inspectors for different subject groups. Chinese History was combined with History to form the ‘History Section’ but, as there was no senior inspector post for Chinese History, the senior inspector heading the ‘History Section’ was a History specialist, which meant in reality that Chinese History was subordinated to History. In terms of the allocation of resources and curriculum change, therefore, this organisational set-up was bound to affect the development of Chinese History. The colonial government’s bureaucratic culture 54 Hong Kong’s Chinese History Curriculum from 1945 had a far-reaching impact on the subject, as D. C. Lam, the head of the History Section, recalls in describing his experience of working in the government: It is important that we were not held responsible for any trouble that occurred. Although not all officers worked for money, the restrictions and bureaucratic culture obviously hindered the motivation of staff. Between 1968 and 1975, there were lots of problems in Chinese History. Every now and then, feature articles relating to Chinese History appeared in the newspapers. The issues related to textbooks, examinations, and political factors. Once the issues were made known to the public, the senior officers, who were mostly British, would require a full English translation of the coverage of the incident. Under such circumstances, how could we work things through? Therefore, officers would try to avoid being caught in any issues. And hence a mentality of ‘no work no fault’ was common amongst civil servants. It is therefore not surprising that when Chinese History became an independent subject the few changes made were confined to minor issues such as dividing the examination syllabus into sections, and introducing multiple-choice questions to replace fill-in-the-blanks and short questions. To a large extent, this inertia reflected the mentality of the officials — ‘nothing ventured, nothing lost’. During this phase, the composition of the CEE Chinese History Committee was approximately 15% AI subject officers, 60% schoolteachers and principals, and 25% academics.1 The minutes of meetings of the Chinese History subject committee (CEE) on 18 March and 24 April 1969, and 31 March 1970, indicate that the officials took most of the initiatives — for example, dividing history into four sections, splitting multiple-choice questions into five sections from which students were to choose three, combining the CEE (English and Chinese) Chinese History syllabuses, and proposals for the Chinese History common-core syllabus. However, although the CEE Chinese History subject committee was largely dominated by government officials who initiated the revision of the curriculum, university teachers were able to find ways to influence decision-making in order to protect their interests (and those of their specific university departments) through their approval or otherwise of new initiatives. For example, during the debate on the scope of study (see Chapter 2), T. W. Lin the HKU representative, proposed that ‘the period for study should be extended to include the Modern history of China’,2 and his proposal was later taken into consideration by the senior official A. G. Brown (again, see Chapter 2). Lin’s concern to protect HKU’s interests was explicit: The Chinese History syllabus for the HKCEE must be drawn in accordance with that of...

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