Reflections on History Education for 21st-century Chinese Communities

Hong Kong education has undergone tremendous changes in the last ten years, in particular, unanticipated changes in the history curriculum as well as educational policies in secondary schools and universities. As a result, enthusiasm for learning history has tended to decline. Why? The introduction of Liberal Studies as a compulsory subject in secondary schools may eventually contribute — at least in part — to the elimination of history in some secondary schools.¹ At the same time, the advancement of information technology (IT) and the worldwide web will play a crucial role in the lives of Hong Kong people and their education in the new millennium. These changes undoubtedly cause anxiety for, and pose severe challenges to, history teachers and historians in Hong Kong.

Since the hand-over of Hong Kong in 1997, teachers have been wondering how to inculcate Hong Kong youngsters with a sense of cultural identity and the conscience of responsible citizens if Chinese history were to be largely abolished in schools and universities. Another, related anxiety is the security of history departments in Hong Kong universities. Furthermore, the incorporation of new technology into history teaching and the making of history as interesting a subject as possible remain matters of persistent concern for Hong Kong history teachers and professors.

In view of these anxieties, the History Departments at Hong Kong Shue Yan College and Hong Kong Baptist University together with the Modern Chinese History Society of Hong Kong organised a two-day symposium in June 2006, entitled "History Education for 21st Century Chinese Communities".² It covered a broad spectrum of topics relating to the teaching of history at both university and secondary school levels. It was meant to provide a platform for scholars and educators of history from Hong Kong, the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan and Macao to share, review and upgrade the profession of history teaching. Thirty-nine papers were accepted for presentation. Overall, one plenary session and eight panels represented various aspects of history education, including reforms in education policy, curriculum design and development, regional differences in history education, the use of IT teaching devices, application of reference tools, guidelines to archival research, specific fields of history teaching and collaborations between secondary schools and universities in history education. The organisers of the symposium are hoping to produce a published volume of the proceedings in the near future.

The intention of this commentary piece is to share some critical reflections, especially on the profession of history education. Among the eight panels in the symposium were overlapping topics, some of which were not directly relevant to their respective panels. Perhaps the most important, intriguing and worthy of scholars' and educators' interest were the topics relating to regional differences in history education, history education and curriculum reform, as well as history education and pedagogy. Thus, the focus here is on these three areas of concern, in the hope that certain problems and anxieties currently encountered by educators and scholars of history will at least be reduced, if not resolved, in future.

Regional Differences in History Education

Few will deny that history education is part of civic education. Hong Kong, Mainland China, Macao and Taiwan are all expected to teach local history, but one of the chief values of historical presentation can be seen as its degree of authenticity — that is, its faithfulness to facts, as known. In other words, any form of political influence on history writing or history teaching hinders the fulfillment of such authenticity. Some speakers conjectured that politics influences the telling of local history in classrooms everywhere.

It is political cultures which shape the way in which history has been recorded and presented. For example, in view of the three local history curricula in some secondary schools in Hong Kong, one speaker argued that the avoidance of political sensitivities precludes an in-depth understanding of the overall historical development of Hong Kong. Another speaker observed that the Hong Kong Museum of History, to avoid politically sensitive issues, focuses its exhibition on the history of everyday life in Hong Kong rather than on the political history of Hong Kong...