Opinion | Hong Kong’s class of 2020, bracing for DSE results, is well placed to brave pandemic-ravaged world
- This year’s school leavers started the academic year during the height of the protests and ended it amid the Covid-19 outbreak
- The times have bequeathed them the ingredients to foster fortitude and compassion and to see the world with clarity
This is for Hong Kong’s class of 2020.
No one would have imagined that this is how your school days would end. Those familiar emotional scenes of classrooms filled with friends, who have known each other since primary school, waiting – in suspense and in support of one another – for the DSE results will not be repeated this year.
There will be tearful farewells, but there will be no parties. There will be anxious times, but there will be no vacations. I bet you know well, by now, that parties and vacations are not entitlements. And neither is the air that we breathe and the hours that pass us by. Education does not give any of us entitlements – we have been gifted knowledge not so that we can be privileged.
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Robots check body temperatures as Hong Kong’s university entrance exams go ahead amid pandemic
For the past year, we have seen the “old world” crumble beneath our feet. As far as human and technological achievements have come, we remain at risk to protein molecules that do not discriminate. Covid-19 simply does not care who you are, how much you earn, or whether you fly first class.