Mandarin proficiency will aid Hong Kong

As the schools in Hong Kong get ready to bolt their doors for the long summer vacation, perhaps those educators, principals and teachers should spare some of their leisure time reflecting on a seemingly taboo subject - teaching in Mandarin.

It's no secret that the earlier government initiative, of adopting the Cantonese dialect rather than the English language as a medium of instruction in schools, had failed to win any support from parents.

The government believed that teaching in Cantonese, the mother tongue of the vast majority of Hong Kong students, would make it easier for them to understand the lessons. But the rationale of the policy failed to convince parents who worried that the expected fall in the standard of English would seriously handicap their children when they become old enough to enter the job market.