APW19980512.0558 NEWS NEWSWIRE MORE than 30 leading education groups and schools have launched an advertisement campaign to debunk the public's bias in mother-tongue teaching. In a full-page advertisement appearing in Sing Tao Daily and Oriental Daily News yesterday, more than 100 educators, school principals and teachers signed a joint declaration to support mother-tongue teaching. The action was initiated by veteran educator and school principal of Mu Kuang School, Andrew Tu Hsueh-kwei. The notice was run on the last day for the parents of about 73,000 primary six students to choose which secondary schools they wanted to send their children to this September. ``It is time for the public to reflect on the whole issue,'' Government Educational Staff Union executive adviser Ho Kwok-suen said yesterday. ``Mother-tongue teaching is the right way to go.'' Six points were made in the declaration: Educators welcome and support mother-tongue teaching which is the best medium to enable students to learn and to achieve the best educational results. The English level of students should be boosted along with the implementation of mother-tongue teaching, and the Education Department should provide more resources for Chinese-medium schools in nurturing bilingual and trilingual talents. Educators respect those schools that believe in English-language teaching. The government should beef up publicity on the advantages of mother-tongue education. The government should value both the proficiency in Chinese and English when appointing civil servants. Educators believe that mother-tongue teaching should be used for the next generation in the 21st century. Starting next term, about 300 secondary schools will teach in Chinese from secondary one, with only 114 schools approved by the Education Department to continue instruction in English. Parents have lashed out at the Education Department for the uneven distribution of English-medium schools in different districts.