Law, Politics and Humanities

Let everyone bloom! T he United Nations has designated April 2 as the World Autism Awareness Day since 2008. This year, the UN secretary-general calls for more efforts on education programmes, employment opportunities and other measures so people with autism can be realize their full potentials. Autism is an inherent, life-long condition of difficulty in communicating and interacting with others, and the presence of repetitive and stereotyped behaviour and interests. It is a spectrum condition, meaning how these challenges may affect varies from individual to individual. The incidence appears to be on the increase. The latest figures show one in 86, 64, 55 and 38 in the US, UK, Japan and Korea respectively are autistic.[1]  Some estimate there are more than 70,000 people in Hong Kong with autism, while the official estimate is 3,800. [2] However, it is unclear whether the condition is genuinely becoming more prevalent, or whether the increase reflects changes in assessm...

H ong Kong needs rights-based law and policies of inclusive education. The chairwoman and rapporteur of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child were in town last week. They were invited by local NGO the Hong Kong Committee on Children's Rights to meet the people and investigate the city, before they returned to Geneva to consider the government's report in September. In their meeting with the special educational needs (SEN) and disabled communities, Hong Kong's problematic integrated education policy was raised again. The city's so-called integrated education policy is ill-conceived and ineffective, having evolved from a welfare and administrative framework dating back to the industrial age. The world is moving towards a rights-based approach to inclusive education and Hong Kong's policies do not match today's idea of human rights. Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) requires state parties to recognise the child's right to e...

T he Legislative Council subcommittee on Integrated Education has been holding a series of meetings on the difficulties in integrating pupils with special educational needs (SEN) into mainstream education. Public views have been invited. SEN pupils are those who have needs and disabilities that affect their ability to learn. Inclusive education is a rising global trend. Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that education be directed to the development of the child's personality and abilities to their fullest potential. Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities guarantees the substantive right to inclusive education and requires signatories to implement inclusive education system at all levels. During the past 15 years or so, the government has taken steps to mainstream SEN pupils under the banner of integrated education. However, the policy has often been criticised as ill-conceived, half-hearted and inefficacious. There a...

Stories of Parents with Autistic Children in the Search of Mainstream Schools I see inclusion and inclusive education more a matter of ethics: how we learn to live and learn together with diversity.  Arguments against (or at least skeptical about) inclusive education based on the lack of skills among teachers or suitability for the students concerned are, to me, not always convincing.  I believe that these are but technical difficulties or resources problem that can be overcome relatively easily and therefore are not good grounds for depriving any human being  of being treated equally.  Human diversity is just a plain fact.  We all have to learn how to get on with others in an respectful and ethical way.  Isn't it what education is about?     Respect for the equal dignity and moral worth of the persons with disabilities is a demand of ethics.  By protecting equal rights, law is always used to help achieve this end. Law provides p...

Woman Holding a Balance by  Johannes Vermeer  (c. 1664) Washington DC National Gallery of Art A conception of law that is contextualized yet principled.