Forty schools will begin to employ Putonghua as the medium of instruction in Chinese language lessons should a HK$200 million pilot scheme to promote the national language and enhance teaching effectiveness be endorsed today.

The Standing Committee on Language Education and Research is expected to pass the scheme in its meeting today and recommend it to the Language Fund.

The HK$200 million will be used to fund 30 primary schools and 10 secondary schools each year so that they could use Putonghua to teach Chinese language instead of Cantonese that is being used in the majority of schools.

A total of 120 schools will benefit from the scheme.

Schools joining the scheme can use the fund to hire additional staff to ease the workload of Chinese language teachers, who would need more time to prepare for the switching of the medium of instruction, a source with the committee said.

Apart from hiring additional staff, experienced mainland language teachers would be invited to give the participating schools advice in the first year of the scheme. Local experts and academics will evaluate the performance of such schools in the subsequent years.

The committee had consulted educators earlier on using Putonghua to teach Chinese language, but the views received were divided, the source said.

To qualify for the scheme, teachers must have grade A in the Test of Proficiency in Putonghua or equivalent.

Some educators whose schools have adopted the teaching practice said students' performance in Chinese language had improved and demanded it be extended to other schools.

But the source said there were also cases proving the teaching effectiveness of using the local dialect.

"There is no question that using Putonghua as the medium of instruction is effective. But there is no academic conclusion saying how effective it is, and we need more time for research," the source said.

The source also said the supply of Chinese language teacher with a good command of Putonghua was insufficient for implementing the teaching practice in all schools for the time being.

But the authority did not have statistics on the Putonghua standard of Chinese language teachers.

The scheme will begin receiving application as early as January.

Hong Kong Association of Heads of Secondary Schools chairman William Yip Kam-yuen said using Putonghua could enhance students' Chinese language standard.

"Putonghua is the same as written Chinese language, while Cantonese is not. I believe using Putonghua as the medium of instruction in Chinese language is a major trend," he said.

Subsidized Primary Schools Council chairman Tsoi Kai-chun welcomed the scheme, but added that the number of beneficiary schools was not sufficiently large.

"A lot of primary schools are teaching in Putonghua. The scale of the scheme should be extended to cover more schools," he said.

(HK Edition 10/30/2007 page8)