Hong Kong team excels at the International Junior Science Olympiad (with photo)
A team of six secondary school students representing Hong Kong achieved outstanding results in the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) 2019, being awarded two gold and four silver medals.
The IJSO is a science competition for secondary school students aged 15 or below. The competition covers three disciplines, namely physics, chemistry and biology up to the senior secondary level. It comprises written assessments and science experiments on unfamiliar problems that require analytical and problem-solving skills. This year, the IJSO was held from December 4 to 11 in Doha, Qatar with participation of about 320 students from 70 countries or regions.
In the Individual Competition, Cheng Yat-long (Raimondi College) and Tang Ho-man (St. Paul's Co-educational College) each won a gold medal, while Chan Tsz-ching (Diocesan Girls' School), Cheng Sze-lut (Pui Ching Middle School), Cheung Sau-chung (Hong Kong Baptist University Affiliated School Wong Kam Fai Secondary and Primary School) and Anson So (St Paul's Co-educational College) each won a silver medal.
The Secretary for Education, Mr Kevin Yeung, congratulated the Hong Kong team today (December 12) on their excellent performance. "The technology in the 21st century develops rapidly. In order to enhance students' creativity and higher-order thinking skills for facilitating the development of society, the Government allocated considerable resources on the promotion of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The outstanding results of the Hong Kong team in the competition demonstrated their potential in science and technology. We expect that Hong Kong students may contribute to the development of science and innovation in the territory," Mr Yeung said.
"The Education Bureau set up the Gifted Education Fund in 2016 and has so far made a total injection of $1,600 million into the Fund. It is hoped that a wide variety of off-school advanced learning programmes are to be provided for gifted students. The Advisory Committee on Gifted Education is currently vetting applications from various organisations including post-secondary institutions, non-government organisations and technology enterprises. We expect that more high quality learning experiences will be provided for gifted students from early 2020 to unleash their potential in different disciplines," he added.
​The Hong Kong team was fully funded by the Education Bureau to join this competition. The members of the Hong Kong team performed well in the International Junior Science Olympiad – Hong Kong Screening last year. They subsequently completed the science enhancement programmes provided by the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education. The best performers of the programmes were then selected as contestants representing Hong Kong to participate in the IJSO this year.