HK ousts teacher in warning to those who push politics

Bloomberg

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defended disciplining teachers for promoting anti-China views, after the Asian financial center for the first time revoked an educator’s registration over the content of their lessons.
Lam told reporters she was obliged to protect students from being drawn into the political disputes that have fuelled a historic wave of unrest in the former British colony. She was responding to questions about the Education Bureau’s decision to deregister a teacher accused of giving his class of 10- and
11-year-olds a lesson about independence and freedom of speech.
“If there is a very tiny fraction of teachers who are using their teaching responsibilities to convey wrong messages to promote misunderstanding about the nation, to smear the country and the HKSAR government without basis, then that becomes a very serious matter,” Lam said, referring to Hong Kong’s status as a special administrative region of China. The Professional Teachers’ Union said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that it would help the teacher appeal the decision. The bureau’s allegations were “totally not in line with the facts,” the union said.
The move is latest in a series of disputes over Hong Kong’s education system, as the Beijing-backed government attempts to gain greater control over what it views as a hotbed of dissent. Students have long made up a large share of protesters on the city’s streets, and people under 18 years of age represented almost one-fifth of the roughly 9,000
arrests as of May.
Chinese authorities in Hong Kong have urged officials to “cut off” the “black hands” influencing the local education system. The nation’s top legislative body in June imposed a security law on Hong Kong requiring the local government to promote national security in schools and universities, which have maintained a reputation for academic freedom, which is ensured under the city’s Basic Law.