Students barely in their teens secure university places. Primary pupils pass high school public exams with flying colours. Playing instruments that tower over them, young musicians beat older rivals to win top prizes in international competitions.
News of students excelling at ever younger ages has put the spotlight on education for the city's gifted children.
Schools now have discretion in deciding how to speed up learning for the gifted. Acceleration can take the form of skipping grades or subjects - which means a pupil stays in the same grade but jumps ahead in one or more subjects.
In Tseung Kwan O, Queen Maud Secondary School has been grouping the top 20 per cent of students in each junior secondary grade into two special classes, one for humanities and languages and the other for maths and science.
There the youngsters follow a condensed version of the formal curriculum that is broader and more advanced than that taught to their peers. For instance, Form One pupils might be learning Form Three material, principal Jasmine Yeung Ching-han says, and the youngsters can join or leave these accelerated classes after an assessment at the end of each term.
Queen Maud introduced its accelerated programme in 2003, but it wasn't until five years later that exceptionally talented teenagers across Hong Kong got a boost with the launch of the Academy for Gifted Education. Set up in response to a call for greater attention to smart youngsters, it runs stimulus courses in science, leadership, languages and other subjects - but only on weekends and during school holidays.
