Months ahead of taking power in 1997, Tung Chee-hwa made an impassioned commitment to education, placing it alongside housing and the elderly at the top of his list of priorities.
Calling education 'the key to the future of Hong Kong' in his inaugural policy address, he promised a top-to-bottom overhaul of teaching and learning.
One of the first major changes came the next year with the introduction of a formal mother-tongue education policy, which halved the number of English-medium secondary schools and ruled that all but 114 had to teach entirely in Cantonese.
Reforms got into full swing in 2000, when the Education Commission published its blueprint for a shake-up of the schools system. Rote learning was out and primary schools were to adopt activities-based approaches. School was to become a place of fun, and high-pressure exams were to be cut to a minimum.
The most ambitious part of the reform - the overhaul of the senior secondary curriculum, the reduction of secondary education to six years, and the addition of an extra year at university - will not be fully introduced until next year.
The path has not been an easy one though, and for many, the jury is still out as to how successful the much-touted, and much-criticised, reform package has been.
Teachers' groups have complained about the stress of coping with reforms in teaching methodologies and modes of assessment at the same time as they had to handle quality assurance inspections, pass language benchmark criteria, deal with an ever more diverse range of students, and face growing competition among schools.