The Education Bureau’s “Inspection Annual Report 22-23”, released on Friday, also criticised schools for focusing too much on knowledge of national security, rather than linking it to pupils’ everyday lives and underlining why the subject mattered to them.

“Teachers and students sang the national anthem together, but the singing was a little soft,” the report said.

“Schools must boost students’ confidence and habit in singing the national anthem.”

But the report added most pupils behaved solemnly during flag-raising ceremonies and also praised schools for the organisation of a variety of activities to boost children’s interest in Chinese history and culture.

The bureau’s report evaluated the performance of 251 primary, secondary and special schools over the last academic year.

The curriculum framework is used as guidelines for national security education and rules that primary pupils in junior classes should learn how to sing the country’s anthem.

The report added some subjects had not focused enough on national security perspectives and schools were not able to help pupils understand the threats and crises the country faced at present or underline the importance of national security when teaching some topics.

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“In terms of classroom teaching, teachers focus too much on teaching knowledge content and rarely link students’ life experiences or create situations to effectively put students into others’ shoes and understand how national security is related to them,” it said.

The report slammed teachers for rarely making use of sharing, discussion and reflection to hammer home the need to be alert to threats and pupils’ responsibility to help safeguard national security.

It reminded school management teams that they had to strengthen teachers’ grasp of national education to help bolster the national identity of pupils.

The review also criticised some schools for not properly covering elements of the constitution and the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.

“This is not conducive to students’ accurate understanding of concepts such as ‘one country, two systems’ and constitutional order from different perspectives,” it said.

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The report added it was also rare for schools to carry to collect qualitative information during self-evaluation, including the views of pupils on national education activities.

“Schools mainly reported the level of completion of their jobs [on promoting national education],” it said.

The education authorities said it was inappropriate that most schools assessed Primary One pupils’ learning through written tests and appealed to them to use a variety of methods of evaluation to replace reliance on exams.

The education authorities also asked schools to review the amount of homework, assessments and supplementary classes to make sure children got enough rest.

“It is undesirable for some schools to still arrange regular supplementary classes this school year, which resulted in less time for students to participate in physical activities and interest classes,” the report said.

Wong Ching-yun, the principal of Scientia Secondary School, said most school heads and teachers did not set a good example by singing the national anthem loudly and proudly.

“When the teachers and school heads cannot not perform well, how can you expect the students to do well?” he asked.

He added that he had observed teachers singing the national anthem at low volume on different occasions.

Wong added the sense of national identity among pupils was still weak, even though the education authorities had boosted national education in schools in the last two years.

Lee Yi-ying, the chairwoman of the Subsidised Secondary School Council, said pupils generally felt too shy to sing loudly at an assembly.

“Students just do not want others standing next to them to hear their singing voices,” she said.

“Not just the national anthem – they also sing other songs at a low volume if the occasion is a mass gathering.”