The ambiguity of the term ‘spiritual’ in Hong Kong educational discourse: rhetoric and substance

Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, the term ‘spiritual’ began to gain more prominence in the educational discourse in Hong Kong, both in official policy documents and in religious schools’ descriptions of their own mission. Addressing each of these two cases in turn, a description of the context in which the increased use of the term has occurred leads on to the question of the extent to which this increased rhetorical emphasis on the spiritual is matched by the actual substance of education policy and the reality of religious education. It is found that the match is much less than perfect, and the reasons for this are explored.

Keywords:

• Education policy
• Hong Kong
• Instrumental mindset
• Religious schools
• Spirituality

Notes

1. The Pinyin system of transliteration for Chinese terms is employed in this paper.

2. These are usually referred to as subsidised schools, which constitute by far the major category of schools in Hong Kong, the other minor categories being government schools, private schools and direct subsidy schools.

3. The actual number may vary slightly since a small number of bi‐sessional primary schools (pairs of half‐day schools, with one of the pair operating in the morning and the other in the afternoon, that occupy the same premises) designate themselves as one school, while others designate themselves as two separate schools.

4. ‘Religious schools’ as used in this article refers to those schools that are run by religious bodies, and in a very few instances, those that indicate a religious affiliation in their school profiles included in the collection of school profiles published by the Committee on Home‐School Co‐operation (2002a, b), but are not operated by religious bodies.

5. The figures were arrived at by going through all the school profiles published in the Committee of Home‐School Co‐operation (2002a). School profiles in the Committee of Home‐School Co‐operation (2002b) do not include a separate section on School Mission Statement.

6. Not revised since 1988. There are no corresponding glossaries for the teaching of other religions.

7. This figure is slightly higher than the one given immediately above, since it includes teachers teaching in all schools, including private schools.

8. The first annual report is the one for the academic year 1997/1998. Information about religious education is available up to 1999/2000. Thereafter religious education is no longer included in the Quality Assurance Inspection exercise.

9. Data obtained from QEF Cyber Resource Centre ⟨http://qcrc.qef.org.hk⟩.

10. In 2002, there were 69,788 school candidates taking the Certificate of Education examination for the first time, 9565 of whom sat for religious studies. The examination syllabus of religious studies covers Christianity. Considering that over half of the secondary schools are Christian schools, a brief calculation indicates that less than 30% of the students from Christian schools sat for religious studies. The only other Certificate of Education examination subject covering religious content is Buddhist studies, which was taken by 1611 day school first attempters. Similar comments to those made by the religious studies examiners on the performance of religious studies candidates were also made by the Buddhist studies examiners on that of their candidates (Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, 2002, pp. 23, 627, 632).