Advertisement
Advertisement
HKDSE - Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Lee Tze-ching achieved the highest score among the 6 DSE students at her school. Photo: Dickson Lee

Tough at the top: how three Hong Kong students overcame problems to excel in their exams

One student has cerebral palsy, another had drug problems and a third suffers from dyslexia, but they all triumphed despite their handicaps

They say exams are like marathons – long, strenuous and not everyone can finish first.

For pupils with disabilities and social and behavioural problems, many might not have glittering grades like that of top students, but the stories of their struggles and triumphs sometimes outshine those who obtain a perfect score.

Born with a brain lesion that led to cerebral palsy, paralysis on her right side and vision only around 30 per cent of that for healthy people, 20-year-old Lee Tsz-ching recorded the highest score – 22 – among the six Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) students from the special needs Spastics Association of Hong Kong’s Jockey Club Elaine Field School. This will probably get her a subsidised degree place.

In between her five hours of studying for the exams every day over the past year, Lee, often suffering from sore eyes, needed to rest for at least 30 minutes for every hour of study, meaning she needed to spend twice as much time as other students did.

She said she wanted to get into City University’s creative media programme because she enjoyed watching television.

“I am especially interested in learning post-production of computer-generated imagery, because I enjoy seeing things appealing to the eyes,” Lee said, adding that she would need to stop watching TV for a break after one hour at most.

Cheung Kwan-siu shows off his Diploma of Secondary Education exam results notice. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Another case involves Cheung Kwan-siu, who started to help his friends transport and sell drugs at the tender age of 12. He quickly got addicted to the substances. Three years later, in 2010, he was arrested for drug possession. The judge ordered him to enrol for two years in the Christian Zheng Sheng College, a private school for young drug addicts.

With the school in a remote part of Lantau, Cheung was far from the friends with whom he used to deal drugs and in a strict environment, which made him more disciplined and helped him overcome his drug addiction.

His schoolmates were physically active, which influenced him to rekindle his passion for sport, particularly football.

With his eyes set on becoming a sports teacher, he started studying hard at school as he realised that one of the ways to achieve his dreams was through diploma and degree programmes.

Now 21, Cheung received a grade of 16 points, which is the highest in his school this year.

This guarantees him a place in a Chinese University higher diploma programme in recreation and leisure management, for which he received a conditional offer.

“I hope that after completing this diploma, I can do a sports degree, which will help me realise my dream of being a sports teacher,” he said.

Fok Yiu-sang plans to enrol in a diploma programme before trying to enter university. Photo: Edward Wong

Fok Yiu-sang also had a rough start to life. Suffering from dyslexia since he was small, Fok began lagging behind in his studies midway through primary school. Discouraged by his learning difficulty, he started skipping classes.

Because of his track record, he was unable to get into a mainstream secondary school and enrolled in the Society of Boys’ Centres Chak Yan Centre School, an institution for boys with emotional and behavioural problems in Sham Shui Po.

But things did not turn around for him until Secondary Three, when his teachers’ concern for him and discussion with him about his future motivated him to start attending lessons.

Upon receiving his results on Wednesday, Fok, now 18, said it was “surreal” to get 10 points, obtaining level 2 – a pass – in all of his subjects except English. The school also said it was the highest score in the school’s history.

For Fok, one of his plans is to enrol in a one-year diploma programme and then attempt to enter university, but he said he was “keeping an open mind” and would like to “try different things” before deciding on his future.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: students overcome various handicaps to excel in exams
Post