Universities pressed to implement ‘security law’ education

Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee (UGC), which oversees the city’s publicly funded universities, has indicated that universities’ implementation of compulsory education on the National Security Law could affect stepped-up funding. However, many lecturers say it is unclear how such a course could be delivered.

The UGC has reportedly sent preliminary letters to publicly funded universities in Hong Kong on their 2022-25 funding. Planning Exercise Proposals submitted by the universities will affect the number of first-year first-degree places and the funding the universities eventually receive.

One of the requirements set out by the government is for universities to include education on the National Security Law and Hong Kong’s Basic Law or mini-constitution as a compulsory course.

The National Security Law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing since July 2020 makes secession or advocating Hong Kong’s independence from China, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces a criminal offence punishable by up to life in prison.

Many have expressed concerns that it could severely limit academic freedom and freedom of expression.

Fung Wai-wah, president of the pro-democracy Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, expressed concern that UGC-funded universities will be under pressure to implement national security education and that resources will be affected if they are not doing enough, Hong Kong’s Chinese-language Apple Daily reported last week.

Earlier this month Hong Kong’s Education Secretary Kevin Yeung said university curricula in Hong Kong must be adjusted to reflect the National Security Law by this September.

For secondary and primary schools, Hong Kong’s Education Bureau already issued detailed guidelines on 4 February instructing schools to prevent activities that might contravene the National Security Law. It has also drawn up a curriculum framework for all grades “to improve students’ understanding of national security”.

Hong Kong schools are required to report by August on what they have done to promote the subject in classrooms and their future plans. Textbooks published in China on national education are about to be rolled out to all schools.

The guidelines for schools note: “The fundamentals of national security education are to develop in students a sense of belonging to the country, an affection for the Chinese people, a sense of national identity, as well as an awareness of and a sense of responsibility for safeguarding national security.”

Universities to draw up their own courses

While it is for the universities themselves to draw up national security education, Yeung suggested it could be in the form of “courses or seminars” but there could be some flexibility as long as universities abide by the law. The plans would be reviewed by officials, he said.

The security law specifically orders the government to increase supervision over universities.

“We are currently discussing with [universities] what they have been doing under the [national security] legislation, and whether it meets our expectations and requirements,” Yeung said at a meeting of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council on 5 March.

“I believe when the next academic year begins, we will see [more] changes made to their curricula and relevant arrangements,” he said.

Under the security law, universities and schools are required to promote national security education. Yeung said universities must also be able to “prevent and suppress” any violations of national security on campus.

Roland Chin, former president of Hong Kong Baptist University who retired in December, said in a departure speech that month that forcing students to take compulsory courses was not the best way to get them to learn about national security.

Nonetheless, he said the Baptist University was planning a review of its curriculum “to find ways to fulfil its responsibilities” under the law which Beijing imposed in July.

Wong Yuk-shan, who retires next week as president of the Open University of Hong Kong and will become chairman of Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council, said Hong Kong students should have “a good understanding of the history, current situation and development”, but declined to say how university curricula should be amended.

Wong, who is a Hong Kong deputy for the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, told the media this week that Hong Kong lacked education promoting national security and national development but said violence was a ‘red line’.

How will universities implement it?

Gerard Postiglione, emeritus professor of higher education at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), told University World News that compared to schools, “it’s going to take a lot more thought as to how to implement that aspect of the National Security Law pertaining to universities. It will take some deep thinking of how to do it well and how to do it appropriately.”

But other academics speaking privately said it would be difficult to bring in compulsory courses of this kind by September, not least because the demands of online teaching during the pandemic were still taking up faculty time.

One lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) said faculty members pressed university administrators in emails and in specially convened staff meetings for reassurances or guidance, with little success. “We only get vague answers,” he said.

“Hong Kong does not have experience of delivering these kinds of courses that are common on the [Chinese] mainland, and students are not used to having to attend them,” said a CHUK lecturer speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Kids who took part in demonstrations in the city while they were still at school and who opposed ‘patriotic education’ for schools will be entering universities. It will not be easy to teach them some of the concepts of the security law.

“Universities not only have to draw up relevant courses but train university staff on how to teach [them], or maybe even bring in specialist teachers for this type of education,” he said.

“We still don’t know how far they will go in imposing the security law and political education in universities; everything is kept very vague,” said an academic at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) who holds Canadian nationality.

But bringing in “cadres or other special staff from the mainland” to teach political education or otherwise ensure universities deal with students, could affect the university’s international credibility and the credibility of academic work, he said.

“Bringing in mainland party members who are already experienced in this type of work at China’s universities could be seen as quite sensitive for universities’ autonomy. Unlike the mainland, party members are not ensconced in the university governance system here,” another academic said privately.

The lecturer added that “the timetable is tight but there are various ways that the authorities can use to put pressure on the universities”.

Funding threats were “not beyond the realms of possibility”, he said.

Funding pressures

Last month, at the same time that CUHK de-recognised the CUHK union for students on national security grounds, the university’s US$182.3 million proposal to build a new research laboratory was suddenly withdrawn from a 25 February Legislative Council finance committee meeting by the Hong Kong government. However, two funding items for facilities at HKU under the same proposal were submitted to the committee.

The CUHK student union leadership was forced to step down and the union had to disband after the university accused it of breaking the law in its election manifesto.

The Hong Kong government had also requested a waiving of the “required notice period” for its sudden withdrawal of the CUHK building proposal for consideration by the legislature’s finance committee and cited the need for “more time to respond to lawmakers concerns” as a reason for the withdrawal.

Similar wording was used in November 2019 when proposals for some US$32 million in funding for HKU and CUHK and another US$180 million funding proposal for new healthcare teaching facilities at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) were withdrawn after major student battles with police on these campuses, widely seen as a penalty for university managements handling of these incidents.

The withdrawn PolyU proposals were approved late last year, possibly helped by the pandemic and an urgent need to enhance healthcare teaching. A new academic building for PolyU was also approved and construction has now started.

Political changes make pressure more likely

But recent political changes in Hong Kong have made it more likely, not less, that pressure could be put on universities over student behaviour and perceived contraventions of the security law on campuses.

On 6 January pro-democracy lawmakers were among the sweeping arrests of 57 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong under national security legislation.

Most are still in detention and have been denied bail. In their absence, the relevant Legislative Council committees could remain in the sway of pro-Beijing groups, academics noted.

A former education sector lawmaker, Ip Kin-yuen of the pro-democracy Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, who resigned from the legislature in protest at the arrest of lawmakers in January, said pro-Beijing figures were putting pressure on the education sector generally.

In January, at a meeting with representatives of Hong Kong’s universities including CUHK Vice-President Eric Ng and Vice-President of HKU Norman Tien, pro-Beijing lawmakers repeatedly insisted that university management take responsibility for students’ participation in on-campus protests and interrogated them over a perceived lack of disciplinary action against students.

Some pro-Beijing lawmakers have already said universities should also be required to hold flag-raising ceremonies at least once a week as schools are currently required to do. The flag is hoisted daily at schools and a weekly ceremony is also held under the new rules that came into effect in October 2020 for schools.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we do a flag raising [at HKU]. We do have the flag anyway. But maybe it could be more formal once a month,” said HKU’s Postiglione.

But he questioned whether there would be further action. “The Hong Kong system has more world-ranked universities than any other city in the world, despite the meagre percent of GDP for R&D in Hong Kong. It is only because it has legal protections for professional autonomy and academic freedom, and if it loses that protection, then it becomes a different university system.”