Press Release

(Hong Kong – 22 November 2012) The Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education (the HKAGE), the Gifted Education Section of the Education Bureau (EDB) and the Hong Kong Association for Science and Mathematics jointly organised the Prize-giving ceremony for the contestants of the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) – Hong Kong Screening 2012 on 17 November 2012 at The Chinese University.

Dr Stephen Tommis, Executive Director of the HKAGE; Mr Leung Kin Tak Joseph, Curriculum Development Officer of Gifted Education Section of EDB; Mr Lau Kwok Leung, Chairman of the Hong Kong IJSO committee and Dr Kendrew K.W. Mak, Senior Instructor in Department of Chemistry of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, were the officiating guests of the ceremony.

Dr Stephen Tommis welcomed all the awardees and guests and shared a few statistics as below:

1)    462 students from 92 local schools were accepted for the competition

2)    31% increase in the number of students when compared with last year

3)    20% increase in the number of participating schools when compared with last year

4)    25 students scored with First Class Honours

5)    61 students scored with Second Class Honours

6)    94 students scored with Third Class Honours

Team Awards were given to the four best-performing schools, namely La Salle College, the Champion; St. Paul’s Co-educational College, the First Runner-up; Diocesan Boys’ School, the Second Runner-up and Ying Wa College, the Third Runner-up. The awards were based on the total scores of the top 4 students from each participating school.

Five IJSO 2012 Hong Kong team members, including Chan Shi Kai, Jeffrey and Wong Chun Yui from Diocesan Boys’ School, Cheung Ka Nam and Cheng Ho Ching, Justin from Queen’s College and Lo Kwun Yu from King’s College, joined the ceremony and shared their valuable experience. Cheung Ka Nam said he loved Science, especially Chemistry and Biology but disclosed that he used to hate Biology. “I didn’t like Biology in the past. I think this is a boring rote-learning subject. But after the IJSO training, I discover that I am interested in Biology. IJSO inspires me a lot,” he said

The team members encouraged all the contestants to be on their mettle during the training and not to easily give up when facing difficulties. Most important of all, they should have the confidence to do  well because all of them have already been winners once they entered the screening competition.

The screening of IJSO aims at identifying scientifically gifted students at junior secondary levels for training in advanced science subject knowledge. After the intensive training programme, 6 students would be selected to represent Hong Kong to participate in the 10th IJSO to be held in India in early December 2013.

Some of the 1st Class Honour Awardees received certificates from Dr Stephen Tommis.	Mr Leung Kin Tak presented certificates to the 2nd Class Honour Awardees.
Mr Lau Kwok Leung hoped that the contestants could be trained to become science experts to contribute to the society.