The school year is dead: long live the school year. All over Hong Kong students and teachers are preparing for a new start. Spring is in the academic air. Teachers seem to have a wonderfully selective memory that allows them to forget the stress they felt during report writing, their high dudgeon following a careless remark from a senior manager, endless hours of marking and preparation or the time when Alvin was sick all over the computer keyboard.

Students are glad to be back. Many will have been bored witless or perhaps have been forced to attend tutorial schools giving little or no respite from the academic grind. But the lucky ones will have had exciting holidays abroad or have attended imaginative summer schools.