Press Release

(Hong Kong – 2 January 2014) The Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education (HKAGE), the Gifted Education Section of the Education Bureau (EDB) and the Hong Kong Association for Science and Mathematics Education jointly organised the Prize-giving ceremony for the contestants of International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) – Hong Kong Screening 2013. The Ceremony came to a close on 21 December 2013 at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The IJSO was an annual individual and team competition in the natural sciences for students  below 16. The screening aimed at identifying scientifically gifted students at junior secondary levels for training in advanced science subject knowledge. It is also expected that students’ collaboration skills, critical thinking skills, creativity, and communication skills would be enhanced through the IJSO student training programme.

Dr Stephen Tommis, Executive Director of the HKAGE; Mr. Chan Pui Tin, Chief Curriculum Development Officer of Gifted Education Section of EDB and Mr Lau Kwok Leung, Chairman of the Hong Kong IJSO committee were the officiating guests of the ceremony.

The size of the IJSO scaled up this year with close to 600 students from over 100 local schools participating in the competition. The responses from students were encouraging with a significant increase as compared to last year. Dr Stephen Tommis welcomed all the awardees and guests and shared the inspiring statistics below:

1)    598 students from 118 local schools were accepted for the competition

2)    29% increase in the number of students as compared with last year

3)    28% increase in the number of schools as compared with last year

4)    25 students scored with First Class Honours

5)    51 students scored with Second Class Honours

6)    100 students scored with Third Class Honours

Team awards were given to the five best-performing schools, namely Sha Tin Government Secondary School, the Champion; Carmel Pak U Secondary School and St. Paul’s Co-Educational College, the First Runner-up; Queen’s College, the Second Runner-up and Diocesan Girls’ School, the Third Runner-up. The awards were based on the total scores of the top four students from each participating school.

Two IJSO 2012 Hong Kong team members, including Leung Sik Chi, Jonathan from Wah Yan College, Hong Kong and Tsang Suet Ying, Florence from Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School, joined the ceremony and shared their valuable experience. Tsang Suet Ying said “I value the learning experience in the IJSO training. I would encourage everyone to keep plugging because the more you persevere, the more you can contribute to the society”

High-achieving contestants were arranged to participate in the (IJSO) Student Training Programme. Six students excelling in such training may be selected to represent Hong Kong to take part in the 11th International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) to be held in early December 2014. The competition will usually last for 10 days.

Dr Stephen Tommis presented the team award to Sha Tin Government Secondary School, the Champion.

Two IJSO 2012 Hong Kong team members, Tsang Suet Ying and Leung Sik Chi shared their experience.