Some History teachers wished, that this year, the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) history examination, which took place last Saturday (May 14, 2022), could have returned to normal, after the examination questions last year deviated a lot from those of previous years.
I told them this was only wishful thinking, as Iris Luk, my successor at the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA), has a mission to ‘scrape the bone of poison’ and put a stop to History as a subject that encourages thinking and discussion—an inherited quality of liberal arts education but is now a taboo in the New Hong Kong, as political correctness becomes the foremost criterion. In other words, the History exam is doomed to follow the new tradition that started to take shape last year….