Medium of Instruction in Hong Kong: Policy and Practice

Poon's book is a qualitative case study of Hong Kong's medium of instruction policy proposed in the Education Commission Report No. 4 in 1990. The study utilizes not only documents, but interviews and observations in analyzing the formal policy and its implementation in school instruction. Poon finds many factors that signify that the Hong Kong government's medium of instruction policy is not likely to be implemented to a large extent territorially. Poon proposes a solution to revise the existing medium of instruction policy, to incorporate bilingualism as a language goal, and to practice language planning societally and in the domain of education.