Before the handover of sovereignty in Hong Kong from 65438 to 0997, the local mainstream middle schools were mostly nominal English middle schools. Except China Chinese, China history and China literature, other subjects such as geography, mathematics and history are taught in English, but actually bilingual teaching is implemented. Only textbooks and notes are written in English, and teachers usually teach in Cantonese in class.

After 1997, the SAR Government is determined to implement mother tongue teaching, that is, all subjects except English will be taught in Cantonese (this policy assumes that all students in local mainstream secondary schools will be taught in Cantonese as their mother tongue, not the mother tongue of individual students or other dialects). However, in more than 400 secondary schools in Hong Kong, 1 14 can continue to teach in English. These middle schools usually have good academic performance, and even a certain number of them are public middle schools. Because government schools do not set an example, the effectiveness of mother tongue teaching has been questioned. The topic of mother tongue teaching is still controversial.

In 2005, the Education Bureau re-examined the issue of school teaching language in the reform of secondary education system. The Council will take students' academic performance as the reference standard. Schools with good academic performance will be able to choose English as the teaching language, while other schools will also use Chinese as the teaching language.

Junior high school students need to learn not only Chinese, English and mathematics in China, but also comprehensive science, geography, history and China history. Some middle schools combine junior high school history, geography, economy and public affairs into comprehensive humanities or similar disciplines.