Season 1 Episode 2

Paul Morris on education in Hong Kong

In this episode, Professor Paul Morris of the UCL Institute of Education in London talks to Edward Vickers about education in Hong Kong.

Before moving to London in 2007, Paul spent almost 30 years in Hong Kong as an academic and teacher educator, culminating in a five-year spell as President of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd; now the Education University of Hong Kong). He has written widely on issues of curriculum reform and the politics of education in Hong Kong, and he and Ed recently co-authored an article discussing the educational impact of the 2020 National Security Law.

This discussion ranges backwards and forwards, as Paul and Ed reflect on their shared experience of working in Hong Kong’s education sector, and on its continuing transformation following the political upheavals of recent years. They discuss the evolution of local debate over academic autonomy, with particular reference to the scandal surrounding government attempts to interfere with the conduct of research at the HKIEd in the early 2000s. They then focus especially on the National Security Law and what it means for curriculum development, schooling and academic freedom in a region that has liked to portray itself as an Asian ‘hub’ of openness and internationalism.

Recommended readings:

Peter Baehr (2022). Hong Kong Universities in the Shadow of the National Security Law. Soc 59, 225–239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-022-00709-9

Edward Vickers and Paul Morris (2022). ‘Accelerating Hong Kong’s reeducation: “mainlandisation”, securitisation and the 2020 National Security Law’, Comparative Education, 58:2, 187-205.

Paul Morris and Edward Vickers (2015). ‘Schooling, Politics and the Construction of Identity in Hong Kong: the “Moral and National Education” Crisis in Historical Context,’ Comparative Education, May 2015, 305-326.