HONG KONG, China — Foreign English-language teachers working in
Hong Kong government schools will need to swear allegiance to the city,
officials told AFP on Saturday, as fears grow about the territory’s ability to
retain educators in the face of increasing restrictions.
اضافة اعلان
Hong Kong’s
Education Bureau said that Native-speaking English Teachers (NETs) and advisors
working in government-run schools must sign a declaration by June 21 in order
to continue working in the coming school year.
Since 2020, Hong
Kong has applied oath-taking requirements to an increasing number of jobs,
mainly those in the public sector, as a way to fulfil Chinese government
demands of loyalty.
NETs must
declare they will bear allegiance to Hong Kong and uphold the Basic Law — the
city’s constitutional text — as well as be responsible to the government.
“Neglect,
refusal, or failure” to sign the declaration will lead to contract termination,
authorities said.
The new
declaration will “further safeguard and promote the core values that should be
upheld by all government employees” and ensure effective governance, a
government spokesperson said.
NETs are
normally hired on renewable two-year contracts, with monthly salaries that
begin at around 32,000 HK dollars ($4,100) and can go as high as 74,000 HK
dollars ($9,400).
Hong Kong
introduced the NET program in 1997 to improve students’ language skills, and
has gradually made NETs a standard feature in primary and secondary schools.
Retention issues
In addition to market-beating salaries, NETs enjoy government
allowances and other incentives to ensure retention, which has been a growing
problem in recent years.
In April, the
government reported that 13 percent of NETs in secondary schools left in the
2020/21 school year, the highest figure in five years.
Officials,
however, said retention and attrition rates of NETs have been “largely stable”.
City education
chief Kevin Yeung has also denied that growing numbers of NETs had left due to
Hong Kong’s strict zero-
COVID strategy.
“There are no
substantial grounds for attributing the departure of NETs or their decision to
or not to come to teach in Hong Kong to our compulsory quarantine measure,” he
told lawmakers in April.
Some teachers
have expressed fears about the city’s political climate, as Beijing remolds
Hong Kong in its authoritarian image.
The loyalty
requirement was first imposed on civil servants in October 2020, and then
extended to government staff hired on contract seven months later.
“National security
education” has been made a priority in schools and some teachers have said they
now avoid sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
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