Exam row official in job quandary

An examination official is debating whether to leave Hong Kong as he has been shunned by the education sector after he resigned following a history question controversy.

Hans Yeung Wing-yu, 50, resigned as an assessment development manager at the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority in August after he oversaw the drafting of a controversial Diploma of Secondary Education exam question.

The saga came after the Education Bureau found a question in last year's DSE history examination to be biased, as it asked candidates to discuss whether Japan did "more good than harm to China" in the first half of the 20th century.

In his last media interview, Yeung said he cannot find a new job and is considering if he should leave the SAR. "I dedicated my whole life to the education sector, but the sector has already smothered me."

"My friends told me that it will be impossible for me to work in a university, given my reputation, and I can only accept it as a fact," Yeung said. "Working in a secondary school is not possible either. Even if my friends offer me a job, they are merely showing me their respect, as those who do not know me in person will be too afraid to do so."

Yeung, who started assisting the HKEAA in 1994, said the atmosphere within the HKEAA has changed in accordance with the political atmosphere in Hong Kong, worsening in 2017 - the year Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor took office.

Yeung is also worried that there will be less and less room for discussion on the subject if the curriculum only stresses political correctness.

"To be professional, one would need to have conscience. To have conscience, one would need to have courage," Yeung said.

But Yeung said on Saturday he will no longer accept media interviews about the issue after unknown people sent vulgar pictures to the HKEAA in his name.

Yeung denied that he sent the pictures, saying the culprit tried to ruin his reputation.

In the same statement, Yeung also took issue with the HKEAA's claim that it did not pressure him into quitting.

"The management met with me in the afternoon on July 22 last year and discussed whether or not I should go. I totally believed what the management told me, therefore I submitted my resignation letter to stay alive," Yeung wrote.

"In other words, I do not have the intention to resign before the meeting," he said.

Yeung previously told the media that the management told him in a meeting that he would most probably be fired after the bureau finished its probe into the incident, which prompted him to resign. The HKEAA later denied it had pressurized Yeung into leaving.