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KINGSPARK NEWS Club Number: 30119 2005-06 Rotary Year : Issue 7 : 1 October | ||
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is the biweekly bulletin of the Rotary Club of Kingspark Hong Kong Club Website: http://www.rotary3450.org/kingspark-hongkong | ||
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| Chief
Editor : Francis Wann Club Webmaster : John Wan | ||
| Editorial
(The Myth of Education Reforms) - By Francis Wann | ||
| District Website | RI Website | RI President | TRF | News Room | Global History Fellowship | ||
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The Myth of Education Reforms
A local university student asked his parent to intervene in a dispute over his assessment records. Now universities are forced to run English remedial programs for their intakes. And as reported in a teachers' conference earlier, the English standards of our university students are simply "woefully inadequate" for university education. A-levels and cert exams are getting less demanding. Questions which once required candidates to display reasonable analytical skills have largely been replaced by those which only value memorisation. Students are given various hints. Bright students are not fully stretched, and mediocrity has become the norm in our system. Since when have we become a community of baby sitters? The labelling of schools which began some seven years ago with the best of intentions has certainly done more harm than good in our education system. Over the years we've only created a school of hypocrites and opportunitists and our education has been reduced to such sorry state of affairs. Only a week ago, Education and Manpower Bureau's permanent secretary Fanny Law gave us a little insight into something everyone - well, almost - knows. At a parents association conference, she asked the English-medium schools' parents to indicate if their children were taught entirely in English. Only one hand was raised. "Teachers in EMI schools use Chinese to teach English textbooks. The students have no chance to speak English in or outside of the classroom. There is no difference between schools using Chinese as a medium for instruction and EMI" (Permanent Secretary Fanny Law) It's amazing that it's taken so many years for our education secretary to realize the discrepancies in her reforms. Now some CMI schools are teaching in English and risking a reprimand from the bureau. And as reported, most English medium schools are English only in their text books and exam papers. It is a joke, but for many of our students, particularly those who've been living with the stigma of CMI, what a bitter joke it is! | ||
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President's
Column
Our Rotaract Club celebrated their 10th Anniversary at the Heichinrou Restaurant on 24th September 2005 and we had 10 Rotarians attended the dinner party. Our Rotaract Club is starting a new chapter for the next 10 years. We have maintained a very good relationship with the Rotaractors for the last 10 years and I am sure it will continue. This can be evidenced by many Rotaractors visiting PP Peter's home after the dinner and playing majong until the next morning. PGD Dipo Sani, Chairman of District Membership Development Committee has requested every Rotarian to invite at least 3 guests to the club meeting in one year hoping that at least a few of them will become our members. He has also appointed our IPP Thomas to be one of the Ambassadors of the District to work on the membership development of Area 8 and he gave us a presentation on the subject in our luncheon meeting this month. He has announced that the cost of half an air ticket to visit our sister club Rotary Club of Sathorn in Thailand will be awarded by the President to any member who has successfully brought in a new member on or before 31st March, 2006. Let us start inviting our friends to our club meeting now. PP Ted Ho and Rotarian Stephen Lin together with 2 other Rotarians from other clubs won the Best Gross Team in the 75th District Golf Tournament on 9th September, 2005. Ted and Stephen were the best partners accounting for most of the scores. Their strategy was that Stephen played safe, but Ted played hard to hit the ball for full distance to the green. Finally they won the most popular game in our District. Congratulations! PP Ted and Rotarian Stephen, you have once again won the honor for our club. We had a joint meeting with the Rotary Club of Peninsula South on 29th September, 2005 and our speaker was our Youth Exchange student, Tiffany Li, who has completed her outbound trip to Canberra, Australia. She is the President of the Interact Club of Belilios Public School and the Interact Club is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Peninsula South. She is jointly sponsored by our 2 clubs and she is our ambassador to visit our Twin Club, the Rotary Club of Canberra Sunrise. She was hosted by the Bramah Family of Stephen Bramah, the Vocational Service Director of the Australian club and she studied in Hawker College for 1 month in July/August. She studied many subjects which she never had any chance to study in Hong Kong and she said the exchange has changed of her whole life. Snowing rarely happens in Canberra, but she had her first experience of snow in Canberra. She was so excited that she wrote the names of our 3 Rotary Clubs on the snow to thank us for how much Rotary have done for her. She showed us the pictures and it is a good example of why the Youth Exchange Programme is one of the best programmes of Rotary International. She has decided that she will join the Rotaract Club of Peninsula South after finishing her Advanced Level examination. We and our Rotaract Club have submitted a joint application for District Simplified Grants for the "little-bags" project. It is a project to gather children to draw pictures according to the lyrics of English folk songs on little bags and send these bags to the poor children of Mainland China. We and our sponsored Rotary Club of Zuunmod have also jointly submitted an application for a water supply project in Zuunmod, Mongolia. It is a project to install a new water pump in a well in the town centre of Zuunmod so that about 600 families living in the hilly areas will get water easily. We do not know whether they are approved or not by now or how much grant is approved at this moment. We hope that our applications are successful and I am sure the completion of them will help a lot of people. We have a sheep donation matching grant project jointly organized by our club and the Rotary Club of Zuunmod. We will provide 350 sheep to the families affected by weather disasters to regenerate the livestock-based economy in rural Tuv Province of Mongolia. Our club and the Rotary Club of Zuunmod will contribute US$7,000 and US$1,000 respectively and the Rotary Foundation will match US$3,550. The contributions from our club will be financed by 3 Paul Harris Fellow donated by our IPDG Alexander Mak, 3 Paul Harris Fellow by Rotarians Kennedy Tsang, Marvin Lai, and Spark Lam and US$1,000 by our community service funds. Thank you so much IPDG Alex and our dynamic new members for your generosity. The project has been approved by the Rotary Foundation. We are trying to organize the payments and comply with the requirements of the Rotary Foundation. | ||
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Continuing Rotary Education
Rotary and other service organizations founded on similiar ethos thrives on members who hang onto the high moral grounds, who follow their conscience, who believe in the Ideals of Service and who would not trade their values for cheap popularity. It follows that Rotary would not be what it started to be and what it aspires to continue to be if the leadership or the membership cannot persevere with such high and undeviating standards or if people in positions charged with interpreting and examplifying its precepts fail to do so either because of their inability to do so or because of a lack of conviction or faith. Rotary has always accorded high emphases on membership development and retention, and quite rightly so. Three years ago, our district leadership proudly announced that one of the clubs in her district, viz., our club, was selected as a pioneer club in the zone for membership retention. It was to be a three-year project and the membership of Kingspark felt rather proud and honored at the time, though a few in the minority did asked why the club was selected and other questions that were not popular and probably because of the latter received no answers. Time flies, and later this month, a past president of our club would go to Evanston on an all-expenses-paid trip to present the findings of this pilot study. I wonder what he would say, for over the last three years I have heard little, if at all, at any club meetings, of how the project had been proceeding. Nor have i heard any discussion at any public meetings at district level. All I have seen is that successive club presidents had tried their very best to persuade members wanting to leave the club for various reasons to allow their names to stay on the register until the last day of their term of presidency. The truth is often unpalatable and hence difficult to swallow. Few people enjoy being reminded of their responsibilities and past commitments, particularly when they know full well that they have not been living up to them. Successive leadership have been operating with a membership figure much higher than he had, or that the truth would demand. Rather, they would give politically correct reasons to explain and to excuse the consistent absence of certain members, and would use every excuse to offer praises for the very little these members might have contributed to the club, so as to paint a picture that they are indeed active members and that hence it was justifiable to allow their names to remain on the membership register. It so happens that the readings for this Sunday Mass are about responsibilities and commitment. In the parable in Isaiah which takes the form of a beautiful poem, a kind and generous master planted a vineyard that would be fruitful, only to find that it was not. So sadly the master had its fences torn down and allowed it to turn into wasteland. In Matthew, the managers of the vineyard rejected and killed those sent by the master to remind them of their commitment. When Jesus asked his disciples how the master should treat those managers, they said in unison that they should be duely punished and that the vineyard be given to some other minders. As a club of volunteers who purports to observe, practise and uphold the Ideals of Service, we should not be here for selfish purposes, but rather learn and practise lessons in service, We should grow in wisdom through our experience and strive to render service to the people who need our service. In short, as a Rotarian, we have a mission and we are expected to bear fruits and grow. We certainly ought not be wearing a Rotary pin doing nothing except basking under Rotary's limelight. Before our past president packs for Evanston, let us pray that he would seek a brief from the district and club leadership so that he could reflect the truth behind the pilot study, which is but one of the tools for membership retention. The most powerful tool remains to be education, continuing Rotary education for the membership, not just Rotary Information. | ||
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Views in any article in Kingspark News reflect those of the authors. They are not necessarily the views of the Rotary Club of Kingspark or of District 3450. You are welcome to write to Chief Editor Francis Wann or Club Webmaster John Wan on any topic, particularly in response to articles published in Kingspark News. We would publish all contributions as long as the authors identify themselves, the contents are not offensive or abusive, and would not offend common decency or common sense. You need not be a Rotarian to write to us and you have a choice to withhold your name in the published version. Where the contents make reference to statements or policies of individuals or organizations, we would try to obtain a response from the latter for publication in the same issue if possible. | ||
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Chief
Editor : Francis Wann The Board of Directors President
: Dominic Ko | ||
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