The Hong Kong Education Bureau has revised its guidelines for Mainland study tours under the Citizenship and Social Development subject, explicitly advising students against using food delivery platforms to order meals during trips due to potential hygiene risks.
The updated document states that if students show symptoms of infectious diseases during the tour, arrangements should be made for them to receive immediate medical attention at nearby top-tier Grade 3A hospitals.
Additional measures, such as ensuring proper ventilation in rooms, adjusting meal arrangements, and assigning staff to care for affected students, may also be required.
The guidelines also introduce new accommodation rules, stipulating that students should not be assigned single rooms and should preferably be housed in double or triple occupancy.
After daily activities, students are expected to stay in their rooms to rest or review their learning, rather than leaving the hotel without permission. The use of hotel recreational facilities, such as gyms, is discouraged to prevent fatigue from affecting the next day's itinerary.
The updates follow recent incidents where students were found leaving their hotels unsupervised at night, as well as multiple suspected food poisoning cases involving acute gastroenteritis outbreaks during school trips.
The subject, which replaced the Liberal Studies curriculum, includes mandatory mainland study tours to enhance students' understanding of national development.
