Four years after her appointment as the first director of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd), Professor Ruth Hayhoe remains one of the Chinese world's warmest and most understanding of academic friends.
The first 11 years of her career were spent teaching at Heep Yunn School here and she received her initial teacher education at the University of Hong Kong. But despite her commitment to Chinese education, her position at the HKIEd's helm will be relatively brief. Her departure at the end of this year has been confirmed with the launch of the search for her successor last month.
But Professor Hayhoe has already achieved much during her time at the HKIEd, leading it from its roots as five former teacher training colleges, which held little academic standing compared with more prestigious universities, into what she hopes will become a university of education.
Professor Hayhoe, 55, who is leaving for family reasons, will return to her native Canada. 'My husband has been retired for some time. We were finding life between the two halves of the world was a bit too strenuous,' she said.
Professor Hayhoe is first and foremost a scholar in Chinese education and she views her contribution in these terms. Unlike Western academics, who could spend their careers immersed in study and the pursuit of knowledge, the Chinese scholar could not feel satisfied unless she also made a contribution through action.
Her time overseeing the HKIEd's development was what Professor Hayhoe described as her years of action, when she made a difference at the grassroots level by attracting higher- calibre students into teaching, offering better training and creating an environment ready to play a leading role in wider education reform.