Education and Politics | Ngan Shun Kau
I saw an online video of Professor Cheng Kai-ming being interviewed by RTHK”s “Hong Kong Connection.” Professor Cheng talked about the relationship between politics and education. He believed that politics is temporary while education is permanent.
Politics is temporary refers to political issues, political movements, and politics in a narrow sense. In a broader sense, not only is politics not temporary, but it must be permanent, all-pervasive, and all-inclusive.
To say education is permanent is referring to the social function of education. A society can never do without education. This is the broad sense of education. Education in the narrow sense is only temporary, and is a necessary stage for a person to go through when he or she is young.
What is the purpose of school education? One is to build children’s character, the other is to explore their potential, and the third is to train and develop their skills in the pursuit of knowledge. The issue at stake is that the shaping of children’s personality, the discovery of their potential, and the quest for knowledge should not be imposed on them by society, but should be the result of their own development with the guidance of adults.
Adults always want to mold children with their own ideologies, and always assume that it is natural to instill their own outlooks on life and values in children. They forget that children are independent individuals with their own unique natures.
The authoritarian government also always wants to shape children for its own political purposes. They believe that cultivating children’s submissive nature is necessary for authoritarian rule. Therefore, the government regards brainwashing education in schools as a fair and legitimate matter.
I spent my early childhood and adolescence in the mainland, and was educated by the government about patriotism from a young age. After the Cultural Revolution and the Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, my generation has deeply experienced the absurdity of communist education. We resisted brainwashing, but nevertheless, we were unable to find ourselves.
When I came to Hong Kong at the age of 30, I felt like a fish back in water. The social atmosphere and cultural environment in Hong Kong were all in line with my nature. It took me at least ten years to transform myself completely. I had to re-load my brain that had been emptied by the Chinese Communist Party’s education with the elements of knowledge that fit my nature. I was born again from then onwards.
Hong Kong has returned a sense of self to me, and the meaning is like a new life.
Before the age of 30, politics impregnated me, and after I turned 30, politics still impregnate me. In the past, politics was the result of government indoctrination, but today’s politics is the result of my own education. The essence of the difference between the two lies here.
There is politics in education, and there is education in politics. The question is who is the main subject, the government or one’ s self?
(Ngan Shun Kau is a veteran publisher and writer. His publications and works are award-winning.)
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