How Hong Kong’s special-needs students overcome adversity to pursue their dreams

Mary Lam Ka-yan recalls the pressure she felt as she struggled to squeeze out paint for her visual arts assessment when she took the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exam in April this year. The 21-year-old, who is pursuing her dream of becoming a graphic designer, has cerebral palsy, a disorder which impairs her visual perception and the movement of her hands and legs. “I was granted extra time to finish the exams as this disorder has affected my writing speed and ability to paint. At times I would need help from assistants at the exam venue as I have difficulty squeezing the paints and performing precise movements with my hands,” she said on Wednesday. Lam was one of many students who overcame adversity to achieve personal feats. To prepare for the university entrance exams, she would do daily copy exercises for 10 to 15 minutes to speed up her writing skills. The student from Hong Kong Red Cross John F Kennedy Centre, for pupils with physical disabilities, received a total score of 19 points with satisfactory results in both English and Chinese subjects, with a 5* in the English oral exam. But her lower than expected result in visual arts may not guarantee a spot at Polytechnic University’s School of Design, her dream. Still, Lam said she would not give up despite the setback. “On the one hand I will continue my journey by self-learning art, on the other hand, I will work on my languages and see if I can make something of it,” she said. St Paul’s top for full-marks students as 50,000 receive Hong Kong exam results Lam was one of 3,156 students with special educational needs who took the DSE exams this year, up about 2 per cent from 2019, according to the Hong Kong Examinations Assessment Authority. The DSE is scored on a scale of seven levels. The highest mark is 5**, while the lowest is level 1. Students get one point for level 1, and an extra point with each rising grade. So level 5** would mean seven points. Another student, Ethan Yang Enhua, 23, who attends Man Kiu College and Ebenezer School and Home for the Visually Impaired, did not achieve the score he had hoped for but remained optimistic. He was inspired by blind Chinese musician Hua Yanjun, who specialised in the erhu, and has been playing the traditional two-stringed bow instrument since the age of 11. Yang moved from Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, to Hong Kong in 2014. His vision, which was damaged because of his premature birth, deteriorated in 2017 and he had to learn to read Braille. He said his musical training enhanced his memory and helped him pick up new things quicker. “I used to be able to read sheet music, but once my vision deteriorated, my teacher needed to sing the music to me so I could record it and practise by listening to the tapes again. Having to memorise music may have helped me learn new English words quicker,” Yang said. But the suspension of classes due to the coronavirus pandemic took its toll on his studies. “We usually use Zoom for online learning but I couldn’t see what was on the monitor, I could only hear. The teacher also couldn’t sit next to me so I had to wait until the lesson was over to call my teacher,” Yang said. He scored 16 points and intends to retake the English subject of the DSE next year before applying to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Although 18-year-old Donna Izabel did not need special help in her studies she said the pandemic had also created extra challenges for her. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she comes from a Filipino family and attends the Hong Kong Taoist Association The Yuen Yuen Institute No 3 Secondary School. “The Covid-19 pandemic [occurred during what] … should have been the most intensive period of the whole DSE. Students should be able to go back to school and do one-on-one with the teachers, and we can probably know our mistakes and perform better. But during that time, schools [were] shut down, we weren’t able to go back … [and] we don’t know our strengths and weaknesses,” she said. Number of Hong Kong students meeting DSE exam requirements takes tumble She scored a better than expected 25 points and plans to study law. Although she personally has not experienced discrimination and has supportive classmates, Izabel said there was still room for improvement to treat those from ethnic minorities as Hongkongers too. “Most ethnic minorities are treated well, especially when it comes to seeking financial aid. However, there are still some instances where the law has failed in protecting ethnic minorities due to the prevalent negative stereotyping or presumed belief held by the people themselves, which cannot be comprehensively protected by the law,” she said. “Rather than seeing the boundaries as a chain to hold you back, use it as a mechanism for you to be better.”