Speech at Opening Ceremony of the Good Hope School Golden Jubilee Open Day

Opening Ceremony of the

Good Hope School Golden Jubilee Open Day

28 October 2006 (Saturday)

Speech by Professor Arthur K C Li
Secretary for Education and Manpower

Sr. Mary Olga Lam (Supervisor), Ms Corina Chen (Principal), Distinguished Guests, Parents, Teachers, Past and Present Students,

Thank you for inviting me to your Golden Jubilee Open Day.  50^th Anniversary is a great event.  It is also a perfect time for friends to get together to celebrate the achievements of the school.  I am very honoured to be with you on this important occasion.

One may not know that Good Hope School , now so well established and prestigious, in fact had a modest beginning.  Fifty years ago, when Ngau Chi Wan was still a remote area in East Kowloon inhabited mostly by people with limited means, it was Good Hope that brought them the Good teaching of Christian values and Hope of a brighter future.

After half a century, Good Hope remains committed to the education of all-round, unique and reflective individuals with global perspective and the zeal to strive for excellence.  Generations of Good Hopers have borne witness to this with their outstanding achievements.  Teachers and parents are proud of them, not only because of their excellent academic results, but also because of their talents in arts and sports.  The school choir will not forget the time when it sang for Queen Elizabeth II in 1986, or when it represented Hong Kong to sing for Pope John Paul II in the World Youth Day of 1995.  The Athletics and Swimming Teams will also remember having competed in the highest division of the Hong Kong Schools Sports Federation Competitions and won numerous awards.

Such a brilliant record owes much to the able leadership of the school management and the hard work of teachers.  Together they have developed effective educational strategies for the benefit of their students.  For instance, there is close cooperation between the school’s primary and secondary sections, which makes education at Good Hope coherent and comprehensive.  The annual joint staff development days for the two sections and the bridging programme for Secondary One students are good examples of collaborative measures for other schools to follow.

As the school turned DSS in 2002, the school management further took advantage of the enhanced flexibility and made good use of the resources available to implement biliterate and trilingual education.  There is now a full team of quality language teachers with different academic and cultural backgrounds.  Their professionalism gains recognition in the community at large when the English panel received the Chief Executive’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2004/05.

Apart from pursuing academic excellence, Good Hope also puts great emphasis on community work.  Students here are encouraged to take part in community services throughout their secondary school life, as part of their education.  In doing so, they acquire positive values that will help them stand the adversities in life, and prepare them to be responsible and caring citizens.  As educators we all know that moral values and civic duties are not something that one can learn by rote memory.  They are meaningful only when they are put to practice.  I am glad that Good Hope has taught its students to cherish community services as learning experiences and to practise what they believe.

Good Hope is exemplary in so many ways that it has every reason to look back on its 50 years with pride and satisfaction.  Knowing Good Hope and its venturing spirit, however, I think she would rather be looking forward.  And so should all of us.

This year is a landmark in the history of education in Hong Kong , because students attending Secondary One will be the first cohort to benefit from the New Senior Secondary and Higher Education Academic Structure.  We will be seeing more dramatic changes in the next few years as the transition draws near, and I have every confident that, with sufficient preparation and a can-do spirit, we can make this reform a success.  I am sure that Good Hope, with its rich experience in education, can also build on its strengths and rise to the challenges ahead.

On this memorable occasion, may I congratulate the school again on its remarkable achievements, and wish her continued success in the future.