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KINGSPARK NEWS Club Number: 30119 2006-07 Rotary Year : Issue 8 : 16 October | ||
| This
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
(HCAL
157/05) - By Francis Wann | ||
| District Website | RI Website | RI President | TRF | News Room | Global History Fellowship | ||
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HCAL 157/05 It could have passed unnoticed. Naturally there was enough to talk about last week, especially last Wednesday when Chief Executive delivered his "People First" policy address. There were the usual sweeteners and on the issue of education, there was the HK$2 billion a year initiative on the Kindergarten voucher scheme. While the actual impact remains to be seen, CK Lau, executive editor (Policy) of SCMP has already given it an A+. The Government certainly understands how to play its cards. I wonder if Cardinal Zen of the Catholic Diocese was in the High Court last Wednesday. And being a normal working day, I also wonder if there were many principals or teachers were there for the hearing of the case HCAL157/05 before Mr Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-ming in the Court of First Instance. The Diocese was represented by Philip Dykes SC and in a final showdown of power struggle, the church has applied for a judicial review into the Education (Amendment) Ordinance 2004. At the heart of the challenge was the firm belief that the current education reform has completely changed the face of education when the Government made it mandatory for schools to incorporate School Management Committees which could bypass the roles of the School Sponsoring Bodies (SSB) and with representatives from teachers, alumni, and parents. According to Mr Dykes, it represented the first step in the depletion of certain liberties at the heart of Hong Kong's existence. Slightly baffled? Does it not make it more democratic? It all goes back to 1997 when terms such as "Quality Assurance" and "School-based Management" were first introduced in the Education Commission's reports. While most people would focus on the more prominent issues like medium of instruction or benchmarking requirements for teachers, an undercurrent of dissent was gathering momentum within the diocese which believes the reform contradicts Article 141 of the Basic Law. As early as 2003 when the government proposal was being debated at the Bills Committee level, Bishop Zen made clear the position of the Catholic church in two articles published in the Sunday Examiner under the headings "Can we still run schools according to the vision and mission of Catholic education?" and "Do we still treasure the multi-faceted educational system?" (Sunday Examiner, Sept 28, Oct 5, 2003) Much has changed since the release of Education Commission Report No. 7, and last year the school-based initiative was officially enacted. What the church feared the most has finally arrived. What's even more worrying is that most people just don't see the crux of the problem, and, as Zen rightly pointed out, the Government was (at that time) trying to push through the bill quietly in the midst of the much criticized Article 23 and SARS epidemic. The Government counsel, however, argued that teachers and parents chose the schools "they held the same values as the institutions, and therefore their views and approaches would not be undermined" Indeed most people wouldn't have noticed the difference, but the disruption to the roles of the sponsoring bodies has already been done. Will it affect the vision of our religious education? Meanwhile the Christian church is apparently quiet on the issue, probably adopting a wait-and-see tactic before making any decision. It would be a real surprise if the judge rules in the church's favour. The argument over the fundamental meaning of religious education can be very academic, and could have become a debate of metaphysics and human values. But unless the church can provide fresh evidence in support of their claims, I would not be surprised if the court dismisses their claims. The submission finished last Friday, and the judge has reserved ruling on the case. Storm in a tea cup again? | ||
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District Ambassadorial Scholarship (An Update) By PP Raymond Sin I am the Scholarship Subcommittee Chairman for the District, helping to select candidates for the scholarship 2007/08, taking care of and providing Orientation to both In-Bound and Out-Bound Ambassadorial Scholars. This year, selection process was completed in Aug, and we have successfully selected seven candidates to receive the Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship 2007/08. Their names and sponsoring clubs are as following in alphabetical order: (1) Chan Kei On, Deon - receive "Rotary Club of Kingspark HK Ambassadorial Scholarship". Her sponsoring Club and Counsellor are RC of Hong Kong Harbour and PP Grace Yen respectively. Deon once was Rylaian. (2) Siu Lai Wah, Sarah - receive "District 3450 Ambassadorial Scholarship". Her sponsoring Club and Counsellor are RC of Kowloon Northwest and PP Joseph Siu Sui Wing respectively. Sarah is a Rotaractor of Kowloon NW. (3) Tang Shun Ting, Seren - receive "Rotary Club of Kowloon East Ambassadorial Scholarship" donated by DGE Peter Wong. Her sponsoring Club and Counsellor are RC of Kowloon East and PP Tony Chow respectively. (4) To Hiu Lam, Hilda - receive "Rotary Club of Kowloon East Ambassadorial Scholarship". Her sponsoring Club is RC of Happy Valley. (5) Wong Sonia - receive The Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship. Her sponsoring Club and Counsellor are RC of Macau and Alfredo Sales Ritchie respectively. Sonia is from Macao. (6) Yeung Chi Wai, Eric - receive "District 3450 Ambassadorial Scholarship". His sponsoring club and Counsellor are RC of Kwai Chung and IPP K L Cheng. Eric is a Rotaractor of Kwai Chung. (7) Zandan Bilegt - receive The Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship. Her sponsoring Club and Counsellor are RC of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Namsrai Gelenkhuu respectively. Zandan is Rotaractor of Ulaanbaatar and from Mongolia. Candidate who deferred her study from last year has come to this year batch. She is (8) Chan Hiu Kwan, Candy - her sponsoring Club and Counsellor are RC of Hong Kong and PP Jeremy Newton respectively. Each of them will receive scholarship of up to US$26,000 to pursue their post-graduate study in 2007/08. As Kingsparkicans, you may be interested in why a scholarship named under our club. The reason is simply. One of our members has donated US$26,000 to TRF and sponsors a scholarship under our Club name. I am not telling who that member is although most of you will make a good guess. We received many application this year, many with very excellent academic background and others with very outstanding community service record. It would surely have given the subcommittee a hard job to select just a few out of them to receive the Scholarship. Therefore we decided to plan ahead, gave ourselves plenty of time to work on the promotion and selection process. We started the promotion and inviting application from different sectors: all Universities in HK, Professional bodies, Rotaract Clubs and Rotary Clubs, since early this year. Having a long application period (deadline was 31 July 2006), potential applicants could have better arrangement to prepare and complete their application form. In fact, the design of the application form itself is something that is not very user friendly nor easy to understand well. Therefore, hundreds of email flew in my email box, asking all sorts of questions. Lucky that time was enough to allow this kind of Q & A. Thus majority of application forms came to our hand did not need any major clarification. One very important thing that I have emphasized to applicants is that they need to take initiative to make contact with individual Rotary Club for the Club Endorsement. By doing so, applicants could know better about their Sponsoring Club and Rotary. The effect of that was shown from the result above, all of the applicants have got their own Sponsoring Club. For past years, the District needs to assign sponsoring club to the individual successful candidates after the selection process. Another breakthrough this year is the selection procedure. We believed that personal experience in being a Ambassadorial scholars while studying aboard and back to District 3450 are very unique and valuable. Thus we have invited our scholar alumni to join in our subcommittee, to screen all the application, to form the panel to conduct the first selection interview in 13 Aug 2006. This panel for first interview consisted of 8 scholar alumni, PDG Alex Mak and I. We know that all applicants must be good at public speaking and presenting themselves, therefore the panel designed to divide the interview into 2 sessions; a group session and individual session. In group session, the panel gave each group of 4-5 applicants a team project to work on, and to do presentation at the end. Having done so, we were able to see these applicants in very different aspects, like their leadership skills, interpersonal skill, personality, enthusiasm and maturity. After group session, each applicant was given a 15 minutes personal interview. Having studied through all application forms, the scholar alumni made up many very challenging and relevant questions to ask individual applicant. After the first round interview, total of 9 candidates were short-listed. Each of them was given remark and recommendation for the final round interview. The final round interview was then conducted by a panel of experienced District officers on 19 Aug 2006. After whole morning session interview and discussion, we all agreed with the decision. And I now proudly present the result as above. Once again, thank you all Presidents, your clubs and members to support the Scholarship work. In particular, thank RC of Kowloon East, DGE Peter Wong and RC of Kingspark HK for your generous donation towards Ambassadorial Scholarship program. I look forwards to having continuous support from all of you and your club in coming future. That is it for this time, and I will keep you updated about the Scholarship program. | ||
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From
the Webmaster
Our district has committed to finance the immunization of 1 million babies born in China over 10 years. We made the pledge around 2002. We had a good start in Handan and made an impact with the Ministry of Health as well as some senior and compassionate Rotarians in Evanston, which had resulted in the approval of a major matching grant that would enale us to finace a project worth over US$300,000 for the immunization of about 200,000 children in Anqing, Anhui Province, against the deadly disease. The project has started and next month we would go to Anqing to witness the actual work and to participate in the actual immunization work. This is a chance too good to miss, for those Rotarians in Hong Kong who are service minded, who have been giving generously to the Rotary Foundation, but who have not had the opportunity to witness the work of the Foundation first hand. We have just obtained the agreement of Governor Tony Wong for the day on which we would carry out the operation, which would fall on 12 November 2006. This is not exactly an NID (National Immunization Day), to borrow the term from the PolioPlus Program, but there are close similarities between the two, and certainly as meaningful. The day would be made the more meaningful if more Rotarians from the District would make the trip to Anqing and be personally involved. I therefore appeal to all of you to mark your diary now and to spend that weekend with Governor Tony Wong and district leaders to participate in this very meangingful programme. You would not regret making the trip; and indeed, you would regret not having the experience if you don't go. | ||
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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
: Patrick Wong | ||
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