Abstract

The Moral and National Education Curriculum for Primary One to Secondary Six (MNE), introduced in 2012 in Hong Kong, sparked off much discontent among different social agents and shaped a chain of social events. Although the Curriculum Guide is now "shelved," debates still continue over its introduction as the public fear that the subject will revive at some point. As this policy text has such an important current stance, in this paper, it will be analysed through using Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach (2003) in order to find out the "hidden stories" that could help explain and understand the policy text and its context better. The strengths and weaknesses of Fairclough's approach will also be examined. It is hoped that the current analysis of the shelved MNE Curriculum Guide will shed some light on the understanding of this on-going policy change process.