HK education failing its youth

That a 12-year-old boy was among the 36 detained for an attack on police officers in Hong Kong on Sunday has drawn much attention. And he is only one of the many juveniles that have been involved in the unrest and rioting that have plagued the special administrative region over the past two months.

The involvement of so many adolescents born after Hong Kong's return to its motherland in 1997 raises a serious question that concerns the future of the city more than the social turbulence itself - what's wrong with Hong Kong's education system?

A glimpse of the primary and middle school textbooks of the SAR shows how "special" it is - hard-line dissidents, who are among the authors, editors and compilers of some of the textbooks, have filled them with their personal political views.