LOK SIN TONG Leung Kau Kui College in Mid-Levels used to be seen as a sink school, where no one wanted their children to have the misfortune of attending.
Amy Tse Chan Tsui-lun was one such parent, who was horrified that her daughter was allocated to the band three school infamous for its poor learning ethos and results. 'I was filled with remorse for not having pressed her to work harder to grab the chance of going to a better school,' she recalled.
Two years on, she could be describing a different school. Now she talks of its 'outstanding achievements' in motivating students, its success in clearing up the bad behaviour it seemed to breed and its academic successes. Pride in the school has replaced her shame.
What has made the difference, she and others say, is the school's new leadership. For Lee King-hang, who took over as principal two years ago, the school was not the worst of its kind. But he saw it underperforming, and acted swiftly to set it on the path to improvement.
The Chinese-medium school's performance in public exams had been far below average, he said. The value-added measure for student improvement between Forms One and Five used by the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) to judge school performance was so poor it was negative for many subjects. Although professional development had become an indispensable part of Hong Kong's education reforms, Lee was shocked to find in school records that the 70-odd teachers had only attended about 50 seminars a year between them.
IT development was so poor that some teachers had not yet learnt how to send an e-mail. The content of the school's homepage, meanwhile, was confined to the day's weather. In the decade since its opening, the school had made only one successful application to the Quality Education Fund (QEF), to support a study trip to Yunnan.