The Diocesan Old Girls' Association HK

The Hon. Mrs. Anson Chan, The Rt. Rev. Thomas Soo, Mrs. Doris Ho, Dr. Symons, Mrs. Lau, Mrs. Blomfield, Mrs. Yip, Members of the School Council, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased this evening to welcome you very warmly to our Speech day at our 140^th Anniversary.  In particular, I am very grateful to our distinguished Guest of Honour, the Hon. Mrs. Anson Chan, Chief Secretary for Administration, who despite the demand of high office on her time, has kindly agreed to be with us tonight.  It would be customary at this juncture to introduce our guest speaker for the evening.  However, as the head of the civil service and the first female to be the Chief Secretary of our government, Mrs. Chan needs no introduction at all.  We are most honoured that Mrs. Chan will be addressing us this evening.

As this is my first Speech Day as Headmistress, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the School Council again for their confidence and trust in me and to thank all the School staff, girls and parents for their unwavering support.

Last year the girls have again done very well in public examinations.  Six of our girls scored 10A's in the HK Certificate of Education Examination, which I understand is unprecedented in Hong Kong.  Apart from academic pursuit, girls have also done exceedingly well in three other areas, namely sports, performing arts and service to the community.  Details about girls' performance may be found in the Headmistress' report in the Speech Day booklet.  While congratulating the top performers, I hasten to add my congratulations to other girls who have also done well and met the targets they set for themselves.  They have grown during the years and that I think is most gratifying to the teachers as well as the girls themselves.

When recounting the successes of the girls, it is most appropriate for us to take this opportunity to thank our former headmistress (and four of them are on stage with us this evening), for their keen devotion, untiring effort and guidance which helped build up DGS as one of the finest secondary schools in Hong Kong.  And we pledge to uphold the heritage that has established the reputation of DGS.

As we enter the new millennium, I think it is meaningful for our school to once again affirm our education philosophy and position ourselves as a school for the twenty-first century.

Here at DGS we pledge to turn out students who are academically, morally and spiritually equipped to be the leaders of tomorrow.  Such a goal is achieved through the provision of a sound, all-round education which takes care of the holistic development of each individual student.  Our students come from a variety of education and family backgrounds.  Our aim is to help all of them develop incentive to learn and to excel.

One of the educational challenges that we face today is the language to be used as the medium of instruction.  DGS is committed to nurturing local students to benefit from a bi-literate and tri-lingual education, or more appropriately, quadri-lingual education since Information Technology is practically another language.  Students are here to learn good English, write and speak proper Chinese and acquire skills which enable them to learn and later work in a knowledge-based world.  From the perspective of educational theories, we recognise the value of mother tongue education, particularly when Chinese is spoken by about a quarter of the world population.  However, DGS and indeed many schools in Hong Kong have been able to educate students using English as the medium of instruction, and our girls master both English and Chinese to a very high standard and do very well in a broad range of subjects in public examinations.  Hong Kong is an international metropolis and it needs people who can communicate effectively with the world, and English is by far the lingua franca of today's world.

I recall from some time back that Premier Zhu Rongji was once asked about the competing role between Shanghai and Hong Kong as the leading financial centre for China.  The Premier spoke very highly of Hong Kong but he then added that Hong Kong should watch out lest the standard of English in Shanghai should overtake that of Hong Kong.  I think this short anecdote has a lot of food for thought for us in Hong Kong.

Another challenge for Hong Kong is this question of élite education.  It seems that English as a medium of instruction is often associated with élite education in Hong Kong.  And élite education is seen by some as contrary to egalitarian or democratic principles and should be done away with.  However, universal or compulsory education, introduced to provide wider educational opportunities in Hong Kong, does not rule out élite education.  They are by no means mutually exclusive.  If we look at China, we see many key schools and key universities which they call (重點學校).  China is putting in a lot of resources in a focused manner and encourages the development of such key institutions.  Hong Kong, I think, should also be sure that our education system could help Hong Kong to remain a competitive city serving the people of Hong Kong and as a window for the Mainland.

Hong Kong's achievements owes much to its pluralistic society and entrepreneurial spirit of its people.  I think the same applies to our education system.  Hong Kong has a variety of educational institutions: government schools, grant-aided schools, subsided schools, technical institutes and international schools.  I hope Hong Kong can build on its existing education system, make improvements as necessary, and encourage them to continue to play their respective role to educate and train up our youths.

Finally, it is also important for DGS to reaffirm that we are a Christian school that places equal emphasis on educating our girls academically and helping them grow spiritually.  It is sad that our world is drifting towards relativity and laxity in moral standards.  Here at DGS we teach our girls to become not only competent intellectuals but honest and upright individual too.  Girls are encouraged to develop a sound personality which incorporates seeking after truth, cultivating tolerance and charity, as is the essence of our school motto – Daily Giving Service

To close, I like to acknowledge that Mrs. Elim Lau and her predecessors have done superb jobs in leading the School to successive higher planes, and they have left very hard acts to follow.  It is nevertheless my fervent hope that, with the guidance of the School Council, the dedication of my fellow colleagues, the understanding of the parents, the zeal of the girls, and most importantly by the mighty and abundant grace of God, my tenure as Headmistress will continue to see the School rising to meet the challenge of today's world.

Thank you very much.