Education University of Hong Kong sets up city’s first research centre dedicated to national security
- Chairman of university council says centre has been set up as an important platform to proactively promote national education
- Centre, led by academic Gu Minkang, will be responsible for coming up with a compulsory national security and legal education curriculum for undergraduates
Hong Kong’s largest teacher training institution has set up the city’s first academic centre dedicated to national security, aiming to ensure students have a strong grasp of the law and related issues.
The Education University of Hong Kong launched its National Security and Legal Education Research Centre on Tuesday. David Wong Yau-kar, chairman of the university’s council, said the centre would be dedicated to imbuing the correct concept of the nation in students.
“[We] have set up this centre as an important platform to proactively promote national education and relevant legal education, imbuing a correct perspective of the nation and the rule of law among our students for them to contribute to the development of Hong Kong and the country,” Wong said at the launch ceremony.
The centre, led by legal academic Professor Gu Minkang, will be responsible for coming up with a compulsory national security and legal education curriculum for undergraduates starting in the 2025-2026 academic year.
“In the future, the centre will endeavour to take concrete actions to boost national security education among students and staff, strengthening their basic understanding of the Chinese constitution, the Basic Law and the national security law,” Gu said.
Gu, the centre’s director, said he would also lead it to organise forums on national security education and develop new theory courses and legal education programmes.
Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok said the university played a crucial role in national education.
“In this aspect, the Education University of Hong Kong plays a unique role. On one hand, its students are youngsters in our society, but more importantly, most of them are future teachers at the same time, who would shoulder the important mission of educating our next generation,” Lam said.
Gu is currently associate co-director of the university’s Academy for Applied Policy Studies and Education Futures. He had previously been an associate dean at City University’s law school.
A law graduate of the East China University of Political Science and Law, Gu furthered his studies at Willamette University in Oregon, in the United States.
Besides his academic interests in Chinese and European commercial law and criminal justice, Gu is also a council member of semi-official Beijing think tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies.
Following an update two years ago on guidelines on teachers’ conduct, students majoring in education have to take mandatory national security classes and complete immersion activities in mainland China.
All Education University undergraduates must take classes in four new areas – digital literacy, national security and legal education, entrepreneurship and national experience – as part of the general education requirement from the 2025 academic year.
The national education module will account for two credits, compared with one before the revamp.
Under the revised code of conduct, teachers should have a basic knowledge of national history, acquire the “correct understanding” of the constitution, the Basic Law and the national security law and respect the nation’s fundamental regime.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin, meanwhile, started a visit to Guangzhou and Shenzhen on Tuesday to officiate at a plaque unveiling ceremony at the first training and exchange base for Hong Kong teachers at South China Normal University.
The base was set up to cater to Choi’s plan to organise more mainland tours for teachers to facilitate their cultivation of students’ sense of national identity, following a proposed national bill on patriotic education scrutinised by China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, last year.
