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English-medium-of-instruction schools, also known as EMI schools, are secondary schools that use English as a medium of instruction in
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
. there are currently around 100 EMI schools, accounting for around 30% of the total local secondary schools. Larry Chuen-ho Chow and Yiu-Kwan Fan stated in the publication ''The Other Hong Kong Report 1998'' that EMI schools gained a reputation for being "elite schools providing better preparation for children to meet their future needs", and were considered to be better than Chinese medium schools (CMI schools);Chow, Larry Chuen-ho and Yiu-Kwan Fan. ''The Other Hong Kong Report 1998''.
Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press is the university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. They are often an integral component of a large research university. The ...
, 1998. , 9789622018297. p
237
they stated since 1997 "Parents rushed to send their children to EMI schools."Chow, Larry Chuen-ho and Yiu-Kwan Fan. ''The Other Hong Kong Report 1998''.
Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press is the university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. They are often an integral component of a large research university. The ...
, 1998. , 9789622018297. p
236237
Jacqueline Chak-Kei Woo, in the essay "Parental choice in the education market", published in 2016, stated that "EMI schools are still being treated as the "holy grail" nowadays".Woo, Jacqueline Chak-Kei. "Parental choice in the new education market: aided-turn-direct subsidy scheme schools in focus" (Chapter 3). In: Tse, Thomas Kwan-Choi and Michael H. Lee (editors). ''Making Sense of Education in Post-Handover Hong Kong: Achievements and challenges''.
Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research and Dovepress. It i ...
, 10 November 2016. , 9781317439394. Start: p
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CITED: p
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History

In the late 19th century
British Hong Kong Hong Kong was under British Empire, British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 ...
authorities persuaded schools to use English as the medium of instruction, rather than Cantonese, by supplying grants. In 1974 the Hong Kong authorities chose not to prefer either language and instead allowed each school to decide its language of instruction. There had been a decline of the number of CMI schools since many Hong Kong parents desired an EMI education. In the 1990s pre-
handover In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transf ...
British Hong Kong authorities moved towards having a preference for CMI, a decision accelerated by Hong Kong post-handover.Postiglione, Gerard A. and Jason Tan (editors). ''Going to School in East Asia''.
Greenwood Publishing Group Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG) was an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which was part of ABC-Clio. Since 2021, ABC-Clio and its suite of imprints, including GPG, are collectively imprints of ...
, 2007. , 9780313336331. p
107
The Hong Kong government issued the September 1997 ''Medium of Instruction Guidance for Secondary Schools'',Chow, Larry Chuen-ho and Yiu-Kwan Fan. ''The Other Hong Kong Report 1998''.
Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press is the university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. They are often an integral component of a large research university. The ...
, 1998. , 9789622018297. p
236
new criteria that determined whether a school may continue to be EMI: the school needed to have teachers who could teach in English and a student body with 85% being able to learn both Chinese and English. A total of 300 secondary schools previously using English began using Chinese, leaving 114 secondary schools using English. The administrations of several schools which historically were EMI that were forced to become CMI opposed the move. In 2009 Hong Kong authorities allowed CMI schools to have special EMI classes. David C. S. Li wrote in ''Multilingual Hong Kong: Languages, Literacies and Identities'' that this action was "blurring" the distinctions between the two styles of schools.


Operations

Historically, in many schools classified as EMI, even though all textbooks and reading materials were in English, the instructors used Cantonese in oral instruction in some or all occasions, making them "mixed-code".Wang, Lixun and Andy Kirkpatrick. ''Trilingual Education in Hong Kong Primary Schools'' (Volume 33 of Multilingual education).
Springer Science+Business Media Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...
, 2019. , 9783030110819. p
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This usage and a decrease in English fluency in the late 20th century were factors persuading pre-Handover British Hong Kong authorities to promote CMI education. many schools having EMI programming are also classified as Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools.


See also

*
Education in Hong Kong Education in Hong Kong used to be largely modelled on Education in the United Kingdom, that of the United Kingdom, particularly the Education in England, English system. Since 2012, the overhaul of secondary school diploma has introduced cha ...
*
English Schools Foundation The English Schools Foundation (ESF) is an organisation that runs 22 international schools in Hong Kong. It is Hong Kong's largest English-medium organisation of international schools. It was founded in 1967 with the passage of the English ...
*
English as a second language English as a second or foreign language refers to the use of English by individuals whose native language is different, commonly among students learning to speak and write English. Variably known as English as a foreign language (EFL), Engli ...
*
Hong Kong English Hong Kong English or Honglish is a variety of the English language native to Hong Kong. The variant is either a learner interlanguage or emergent variant, primarily a result of Hong Kong's British Hong Kong, British colonial history and the ...
* English-language education in China


References

English-language schools in Hong Kong {{HK-stub