ABSTRACT
After World War II, the British colonial government faced the challenge of rebuilding Hong Kong’s education system in a short period of time with limited resources in the face of the mass influx of migrants and refugees. The government thus depended on missionary organisations and local charities to provide school places during the immediate post-war era, which established a strong Anglo-Chinese (i.e. English) education alongside the vernacular (i.e. Cantonese) education. As a language of officialdom and commerce since the colonial era, English occupied a significant position in Hong Kong society. This chapter discusses English as a medium of instruction (MOI) in the education system as well as its development as a language subject. The changing MOI policies after the change of sovereignty in 1997, which contributed to the government’s expensive endeavour in hiring native-speaking English teachers (the NETs scheme) in Hong Kong schools, is discussed. The personal experiences of the author through the decades of English language curriculum reforms offer a close-up view on how the development of English language and literature education played out from an individual’s perspective.
