Best essay wins visit to Harvard

IF you are interested in visiting one of the world's most respected universities, and you care about good writing in English, then you might consider taking part in an essay competition for Forms Five to Seven students.

Two round-trip tickets to Boston in the United States, and a visit to the prestigious Harvard University make up the first prize of The Harvard/SCMP Essay Contest 1995, jointly organised by the Harvard Club of Hong Kong and Young Post.

Steve Chik Wai-win, an economics major who graduated from Harvard in 1986 and who is president of the local Harvard Club, said the competition was aimed at raising students' interest in writing English and to promote quality English writing in schools, as well as make the university better known among Hong Kong students.

Mr Chik said that most Hong Kong students would have heard about Harvard, but may not know much about it.

The three topics were chosen by the panel of four contest judges - Mr Chik himself, the education editor of the South China Morning Post, Professor Wang Gungwu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, and Ms Denise Yue Chung-yee, Director-General of Industry.

This is the first time the club is organising such a competition for secondary school students, and Mr Chik hoped it would become a yearly event.

Interested students from Forms Five to Seven can write on one of the following topics: Imagine that you are a local legislator. Make a proposal for environment protection in Hong Kong; Discuss Hong Kong's role in the Asia-Pacific Region by the Year 2000; Suppose you can go back in time, who would you like to meet and why? What would you say to each other? All entries will be screened by the club and 20 essays will be selected for the adjudicators. The essays will be judged on their originality, clarity of expression and structure.