A leading Hong Kong secondary school has expressed regret and withdrawn guidelines accused of banning Cantonese from graduation videos after the policy sparked controversy.
Good Hope School issued a public statement on Monday evening, saying it had heard concerns from the wider community and had “fully and formally withdrawn” the guidance paper for next year’s Form Six graduation class video.
“Good Hope School wishes to state unequivocally that it has never been our ethos to constrain the mother tongue of any child entrusted to our care, and nor shall it ever be. Drawing on our deeply ingrained and cherished culture of biliteracy and trilingualism, we remain dedicated to nurturing young minds,” it said.
“We acknowledge, with profound contrition, that our previous document caused distress, misgiving, and sorrow among our students, parents, alumnae and the wider community. For this lapse, the school bears full responsibility.”
The school came under scrutiny after a recent post on social media platform Threads went viral, sharing what appeared to be internal presentation materials from Good Hope School, a semi-private girls’ school in Ngau Chi Wan.
Referring to “a Band 1A girls’ school on Clear Water Bay Road”, the user posted images resembling presentation slides titled “Language Standards”. The slides stated that classes would have to mute the audio and redo sound effects if Cantonese was detected in voice tracks, with only English and Mandarin permitted.
The public statement came a day after the Education Bureau urged the school to review arrangements for the event and maintain effective communication with stakeholders.
In Monday’s statement, the school said its leadership team had taken several measures to “address the crucial issue of trust”.
It said it had immediately revoked the guideline and begun consulting student leaders, the graduating class and parent representatives to draft a new document jointly on the graduation videos.
It added that it would ensure every student was “free to recount her school days in voices and accents that ring clearest to her heart”.
On Saturday, principal Gary Harfitt clarified that Cantonese was not forbidden at the institution, according to an internal email to students and parents that was circulated online.
He said a PowerPoint slide that had not been revised was regrettably issued to Secondary Six students and contained inappropriate language.
He added that he took full responsibility for the oversight and stressed that the slide’s message did not reflect school policy. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
