In April, a news that has shocked the world is a massacre happened in Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the USA. The incident is regarded as the worse campus violence in history – the deadliest shooting incident in modern times. A Korean student brutally gunned down a large number of students and lecturers causing at least 33 deaths and 15 or more injuries. Amidst the grief of the victim families and mourning of the whole U.S. nation, questions of concerns are raised and discussions have been generated. Two points are common in public discussions. The first is the lax gun law and hand gun control in a so-called Free Society as the USA. The second is the violence culture in contemporary society.

Gun-control laws are so lax in the USA that thousands of Americans possess arms. In some states, no license or training is required to purchase a gun. Possession of gun is regarded as a right of people. According to statistics, there are on average over 80 people being killed by guns every day and 30,000 lives are claimed by gun shots every year. In countries like Australia, Japan and England where gun-control laws are tight, access to guns is heavily restricted and penalties for illegal possession are severe. The outbursts of random handgun killings, therefore, seldom happen and never occur as regularly as they do in the US.

Such tragedies reveal that our culture is overflowed with violence. The most popular movies and videos glorify violence and cheapen human life. Music and computer games these days sell violence as survival and coping skills. Even animation, cartoon and comics which young people enjoy a lot are frequently overdosed with violent elements as well. Like pornographic media, violence culture corrupts our heart and mind. It is worrying that such violence content would adversely impact on youngsters worldwide.

I hope all of you will make wise choice when enjoying your holiday or choosing your leisure activities. Don’t be influenced by the violence-inclined entertainment such as movies, online games and videos. Play with them with critical mind and good sense of judgment. I also hope all NPL students can cultivate a positive attitude towards life. Once you are in difficult times or adverse situations, always remember that violence should not be resorted as it is definitely not a pragmatic solution to problems. You should instead enlarge your social circle in your everyday life. I am sure your friends, schoolmates, associates and most importantly, your family members and teachers will assist you in coping with hardships. A peaceful way to tackle problems makes our world a more harmonious place to live in.

Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
May , 2007

The 2nd Mid-term Test is over and the Easter Holiday is coming very soon. What are you going to do during the 11-day vacation? I read a piece of article in SCMP recently. According to a study conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, nearly 40% of Hong Kong children watch at least four hours of TV every day. Another survey revealed that youngsters in the SAR are used to browsing the World Wide Web for over 4 hours a day. Some US studies also found that teenagers spend more time watching TV (1,500 hours per year) than they spend at school (900 hours per year). Many of them watch TV when they are having dinner and when they are taking a rest. However, a research conducted in 2001 indicated that parents in the USA only spend less than 3.5 minutes per day in meaningful conversation with their children. This figure has shrunk sharply compared to ten years ago, when US father spent on average 6 minutes daily having quality conversation with their kids.

Numerous studies showed that children who consistently spend many hours in front of the TV are more likely to be overweight, resulting in obesity. It is because they tend to eat snack while watching TV which leads to additional intake of calories. Likewise, teenagers watching TV incline to consume food advertised frequently on TV. For instance, they are easily tempted by fast food, soft drinks, sweets and other fatty and sugary snacks on commercials. As TV-watching time goes up, time spent exercising goes down. The lack of exercise would easily cause chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

I hope that NPL students will not only watch TV and play computer games all the time in the holiday. Arrange your time properly. Spend more time on reading and develop a genuine interest in it. Active readers cultivate a good reading habit and frequently engage in leisure reading. They read for pleasure and purpose. They, therefore, can get many benefits from reading, such as broadening horizons, consolidating reading literacy, improving language proficiency and most importantly, building up foundation of lifelong learning.

I also advise you to spend more quality time with your family members and take initiative to talk with them. While eating out, it is sad to see young people these days play with their handheld game consoles in restaurants and ignore their family members sitting nearby. Chat with your family members when you are having dinner with them. Help your mother do the household work like going to the market, preparing dinner and tidying up the family. Treasure the moment of having quality time with your parents so that you will not feel regret when you have no more chances to do so in the future. Take your initial step from today before it is too late.

Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
April , 2007

Last Week, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong has announced a new initiative to double the quota of non-local undergraduates in all HK universities, and they are allowed to work part time. This policy is to be in line with the China’s 11th five year plan and to boost the competitiveness of HK by enhancing the quality of her human resources and manpower. Last year, thousands of mainland students competed for about 1000 bachelor degree and a few hundreds associate degree courses. From this year onwards more mainland students will be able to fulfill their dream and study in Hong Kong, in universities, and very near future, in secondary schools. Many universities are now working out their plans to hire coaches to take students across the border, rent hostels and prepare more boarding facilities for the mainland students. All Universities welcomed this policy, as many lecturers have found that students from the mainland are more diligent, aggressive and forward moving. Many of them can pick up Cantonese in a few months and can speak fluent Putonghua and English. We believe this is very true for we witnessed Beijing students expressing themselves in very fluent English in our cultural collage.

On the other hand, early in November, the Hong Kong Government has announced a ‘Quality Migrant Admission Scheme’ to attract more quality and world class professionals to come to Hong Kong. People with outstanding achievements can apply to settle in Hong Kong. Among the successful applicants, there are two internationally renowned pianists, Li Yundi and Lang Lang, and some other medalists in sports. Hong Kong is an attractive place to quality Mainlanders because people coming here can enjoy many of the freedoms unavailable in the Mainland. Besides, our city provides a vibrant, exciting and westernized lifestyle and people can still remain culturally Chinese. Thus, Hong Kong is an ideal home from home for many Mainland people.

It is anticipated that such inflow of non-local students and Mainland migrants will further be strategically enlarged. Hong Kong younger generations have to be well-prepared for stiffer competition in the education and careers market.

Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
February , 2007

Dear Students, the mid-term exam is over. It is a time to reflect the effectiveness of your study method and look for means for improvement.

One of the areas you have to look at is your study habit. Good study habit can enhance learning efficiency. Choose a quiet place, sit properly in good posture, try to concentrate on your work, don’t watch Television and listen to music, and don’t listen to MP3 while you are doing your revision.

Many young people have formed a habit of listening to music when they work, when they study, and worse still, when they travel and walk in the street. A few days ago, it was really a tragic news to every HK people when we learned that a 14 year-old student, a young creative writer in secondary school, was seriously injured when he pumped into a lorry in the street. His skull was seriously fractured and he is now still in the intensive care unit of hospital, critically wounded and may become a vegetable. The incident was heart breaking to his parents, they embraced each other and cried desperately in the hospital for the loss of their son.

The accident was described as rare because it was not the lorry knocking down the students, but the student mindlessly pumped into the vehicle. Witnesses said that the boy was indulged in listening to music emitted from his MP3, he bent his head and was humming the song to himself. The driver saw him, pressed the horn loudly, but the boy was deafened by the loud music. The driver braked the lorry but failed to bring the vehicle to a complete stop and the boy crashed into the vehicle and he was flung onto a concrete pole, and lied in blood in the street.

Statistics shows that listening to MP3 in the street causes increasing number of road accidents and rising death toll. Besides, researchers have warned that non stop exposure to loud MP3 music will cause permanent damage to hearing. Very few MP3 users are aware of the fact that loud volumes of their MP3 will damage their ears and impair their hearing. Millions of people around the world suffer permanent hearing loss because of various reasons. It has been alarming that more and more young people have become members in this hearing loss population. Most hearing impairment is permanent and cannot be cured.

Listening to music is a good pastime and a healthy leisure activity, but it is a bad habit to listen to music, listen to MP3 while you are studying or walking in the street. It may cost your life and definitely lower your effectiveness in study. Please stop doing that before it is too late to regret.

Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
January , 2007

In December, we were honored to have invited two outstanding Hong Kong people to come to our school to conduct two sharing sessions with our schoolmates. One is Mr. Anthony Wong, the Managing Director of Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Ltd and the other is Mr. Chung Kin Man, the top mountaineer in the world who conquered the highest peaks of the seven Continents, the North Pole and the South Pole. They came to share their success stories. Their sharings are inspiring and insightful. Both successful people possess very good personal qualities and are role models for younger generations. Both Mr. Wong and Mr. Chung have very strong emotional competence. They dare to dream and set a clear target in life. They then persevere and pursue their dreams and do not easily give up in the face of difficulties.

They both emphasize the importance of self-reliance, the ability to stand on your own feet to complete tasks. Mr. Wong said that one cannot expect his superiors to guide him all through the tasks. He has to solve the problems encountered and rely on himself and work on his own. Mr. Chung said that one could not expect others to teach you how to complete every single step. Successful people have to set their own targets, work out the plan and stick to it wholeheartedly and perseveringly. Besides, there is no rose without thorns. When you fail or when difficulties arise, reflect and search for better methods and try again. Successful people do not take drawbacks as failure but treat them as crises which can be converted to opportunities if they are property dealt with.

Another impressive characteristic demonstrated by these two successful persons is their high level of self-confidence and social competency. They are easy going, approachable and sociable. Such qualities command respect and generate good team cohesiveness and team work which are also salient elements for successful leadership. I hope Ngan Po Lians can learn and be inspired by such success stories, internalize the lessons and translate the insights into everyday actions in studies and personal development.

Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
December , 2006

The cultural collage among Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, New Zealand and Ngan Po Ling Students is over. It left behind wonderful memories, valuable international friendship and enriched life experience. The collage once again opened up ourselves to the general public, to the education community in Hong Kong, in Mainland China and overseas country. This time, the mass media, newspaper, radio station and TV station have also put us in their lime light and reported our function in their coverage.

I must share with you the social recognition, the praise and compliments we have received and enjoyed. As most of us heard the sharing from student representatives of different participating schools, our school is described as a good school with very pleasing, neat and tidy environment. We have better facilities in compared to many schools in shanghai, Beijing and the New Zealand. However, we are considered as good not only because of our hardware and our facilities, but the people inside. We are a good school because we have good students and good teachers. Ngan Po Ling Students presented themselves, to overseas friends and guests, as polite, well-mannered, helpful and pleasant students, interacting with each other in harmonious school ethos and social climate.

Our teachers are praised as enthusiastic and professional teachers, visionary, creative and thoughtful planners, energetic and organized doers, impressive and superb team leaders and team players.

All these are genuine appreciation and I think all colleagues, Ngan Po Lingians deserve these compliments. The response and our experience prove that we are on the right track and in the right direction to open up our international and global perspectives that are much needed when growing up in the 21st century.

In this collage, we also learnt from our overseas friends, they have showed us that the younger generations all over the world, especially the high achievers, are very competent and outstanding. Their language proficiency, in English as well as in Putonghua, is very fluent and eloquent. Many of them demonstrate very high level of self confidence in getting along with new friends, making presentations and performing on the stage. Above all, they study very hard and their academic foundation is very good. A F4 student from Shanghai told us that they learned our F4 Maths when they were in F2. Thus, for us, there is no room for complacency, arrogance or self-degradation. For sure, we have to work hard and get well prepared for the future challenge. Last Week is a very good experience for us all, we learnt and got new perspectives. Thanks again to all colleagues, especially the cultural exchange committee members, for their good work and hard work.

This Sunday, students are going to receive the report card for the first test, if the result is good, celebrate with your family, keep it up and challenge an even higher level of achievement. If the result is not satisfactory, learn from the experience, reflect and change your attitude and study method and look for improvement for the coming examinations. Only through the process of reflection, adjustment and improvement, we grow in life.

Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
November , 2006

Welcome back to Ngan Po Ling College. To our new members, my warm welcome to you all for joining our big family and hope you will enjoy our school life. I believe that all of you have had an enjoyable summer vacation, having a good time to refresh and relax. Now that a new academic year begins, I hope you all have new goals to attain and further improvements to achieve.

Our teachers and I have been working hard to provide students with a pleasant, comfortable and orderly school environment, in order to let them study well and learn effectively. More importantly, we are dedicated to achieving our mission, to nurture well-rounded individuals. In fact, we have been making improvement in different areas. I am delighted to share some of the accomplishments we made last year.

For academic achievement, our HKCEE results are rather encouraging. The percentage of candidates with 14 points or more from best 6 has been increasing. For some subjects, our passing rate or credit rate is higher than the average rate territory wide. In our 1st HKAL examination, we have successfully sent students to Universities. Same as HKCEE, our passing rate of some AL exam subjects is higher or much higher than that of all candidates in Hong Kong.

For all round education, we have developed a variety of extra-curricular activities and got impressive external competition results especially in sports and music. Last year we got 20 championships, 14 1st runner-ups and 16 2nd runner-ups. It is really impressive for a three-year old secondary school. To open up our students’ international perspectives and to enhance multicultural education, we have already established good connections with renowned secondary schools in Shanghai, Singapore and New Zealand. This year, we are going to conduct another cultural exchange collage with these schools again. It will be doubtlessly one of our highlights in our 06-07 school term.

There are a number of major concerns I would like to emphasize in the new school year. First, I would like to further enhance quality in our students’ academic performance, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. I hope students can obtain better results in both the school and public examinations and have better foundations for further studies and wider access to tertiary education sector. This year, in order to prepare students for the changes in external requirements, in examinations and society, where emphasis has been placed on creativity, critical thinking, communication skills and awareness on social issues. We are going to integrate these 4C elements across all subject curriculum. This aims to make students become better-equipped and well-prepared for their future careers path as the four elements mentioned are very important to personal growth and self-improvement as well. Besides, we shall further enrich our EMI policy and language environment, which is definitely an issue we have to focus on. Our school is an EMI college, therefore, it is necessary for us to uphold our language policy and strengthen our students’ English language proficiency. English and Putonghua are made official language in our school. This year every day will be our English speaking day and our teachers will communicate with students in English or Putonghua most of the time in our school life. Lastly, we hope all Ngan Po Ling students are good students with good personalities besides excellent academic or ECA results. We would further nurture good habits and good character among all students .

In the coming school year, respect, politeness and cleanliness are our major concerns for students’ personal and social development. These are not high sounding philosophy but common virtues that we always price. Students are expected to follow instructions from teachers and reflect their comments politely. Greet their teachers and schoolmates properly to show that they are mature and confident students. Keep clean and tidy personal attire, and keep classroom and school campus neat and tidy all the time. All these can help create a harmonious atmosphere at our school and establish a positive image for Ngan Po Ling College.

A new term does mean a new start. I hope all students can keep the good things up and make continuous progress in the coming months. Let’s work hard together and make more accomplishment, for the betterment of the school and all students. Once again, I wish all members of Ngan Po Ling College a joyful and fruitful academic year.


Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Principal
September , 2006