Crowdfunding campaign to fight for first casualty

The Professional Teachers' Union has launched a crowdfunding campaign to assist the first teacher whose license was revoked to appeal against the decision and to aid others facing disciplinary action.

The PTU yesterday urged people to make donations toward the lawsuits and emergency aid fund set up in January to support teachers affected by political suppression.

On the deregistered teacher, education sector legislator Ip Kin-yuen, who is a PTU vice-president, said the Education Bureau should not reach a decision by simply reading a lesson plan as that can be very different to actual classroom teaching.

"We have to look at both the lesson plan and also the actual delivery of the lesson," Ip said. "We cannot ignore the actual delivery and just look at the lesson plan. This is a major mistake [the Education Bureau] has committed this time."

Ip also said the lesson plan proposal to ask students to raise their hands was to increase interaction between the teacher and students rather than forcing students to make a political statement.

He also said the bureau did not allow the teacher to offer a verbal defense.

The PTU is also considering to intervene in a judicial review move by 803 Funds, a group founded by former chief executive Leung Chun-ying to trace demonstrators who allegedly broke the law amid social unrest.

Leung's group has applied for a judicial review at the high court to force the administration to provide details of teachers targeted in complaints, including names of their schools.

Leung yesterday criticized the PTU for shouldering responsibility for the teacher and declared that the union was not behaving professionally.

He wrote on Facebook, with hashtag references, that professional groups should punish problem members and end such memberships rather than covering faults like the PTU did. Leung also attacked the Education Bureau for not disclosing the name and school of the fired teacher.

Hung Wai-shing, a primary school principal and director of the Hong Kong Aided Primary School Heads Association, said the topic of freedom of speech can be discussed, but teachers must be careful when selecting materials.

He would advise teachers against using teaching materials related to Hong Kong independence, Hung added, but he would not ask them to stop discussing freedom of speech.

The chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, Wong Kam-leung, said it is unacceptable for teachers to promote personal political opinions or advocate independence, that schools have a responsibility to ensure teaching fulfills the Basic Law.

The head of Amnesty International's China team, Joshua Rosenzweig, said that the deregistration showed freedom of expression in Hong Kong is "increasingly being eroded."

At Alliance Primary School in Kowloon Tong, a mother named Wong said: "There are just some common open-ended questions on the worksheet so I am not sure about the teaching method. But I don't think from just looking at the worksheet that it is [promoting independence]."

A father, Geng, said that if a teacher cannot provide proper materials then a qualification should be revoked.

And he will pay more attention to his child's homework and complain if there is a problem.