The purpose of this paper is to describe the Hong Kong (HK) school curriculum, especially the general curriculum for civic education and other social subjects, in relation to the political events of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident, and the return of HK's sovereignty from the United Kingdom (UK) to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. This paper will argue that since 1984, the school curriculum of HK has been marked by tensions brought about by political cultures shaped by the UK and the PRC, the bureaucratic mechanisms of which are used to make sure that those curriculum contents that are judged to be politically correct are taught in school. Over the last two decades the school curriculum has been depicted as being shaped by the emergence of the nation-state and the transfer of sovereignty. Granted that political and national education forms part of the school culture, the question of how to shape students to be patriotic through the curriculum will continue to be contentious.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596300701289045]

Hong Kong's school history curriculum is unique worldwide in that it consists of two entirely separate subjects--'History' and 'Chinese History'--which differ not only in content, but also in terms of their pedagogy and their assumptions concerning the nature of history as a discipline. The distinct subject of 'Chinese History' was first created in the 1950s, largely in response to the colonial government's desire to limit the politicisation of local schools. However, there was subsequently little interference by the government in the development of curricula for the 'two histories'. The pattern of curriculum development for history in Hong Kong over the past few decades does not support conventional theories concerning the impact of colonialism on education. On the contrary, it suggests that the relationship of colonialism to curriculum development may in Hong Kong's case be better understood in terms of a mutually convenient collaboration between the government and local educational elites.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050060120103865]