“The Second Greater Bay Area ‘Respect for Teachers’ Life Education Writing Competition” successfully concluded with an online award ceremony and a sharing session held by The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) on 20 August 2021 with more than 150 schools and families to participate. It had received 8,029 contributions from students in 363 primary schools in Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and Zhuhai.

In his opening address, Professor John Lee Chi-kin, Vice President (Academic) and Provost, and Convener of the ‘Tomorrow Teacher: Life and Character Leadership Programme for Pre-service and In-service Teachers’ said, “As a teacher education-led higher institution in Hong Kong, EdUHK adheres to its Education-plus approach to promote values and life education in society. The latter can enhance the resilience of young people and cultivate positive values and morals, and EdUHK has been actively promoting this in recent years. Several speaking and writing contests have already been organised, with the themes of ‘respect for teachers’ and ‘life education’. The purpose is to deepen students’ understanding of the traditional Chinese virtue towards teachers, so as to nurture their moral values. I hope that students can sense the teachers’ enthusiasm and, in turn, be thankful and appreciative of teachers’ dedicated effort, thereby putting ‘respect for teachers’ into practice.”

The competition was co-organised by the Faculty of Humanities, the Department of Chinese Language Studies, and the Centre for Religious and Spirituality Education at EdUHK. Its aim was to promote and inspire schoolchildren to understand this traditional virtue. Leading experts, including Professor Wang Ning from Beijing Normal University, were invited to act as consultants for the competition. 

(From left) Professor Pamela Leung Pui-wan, Acting Dean and Associate Dean (Quality Assurance and Enhancement) of the Faculty of Humanities; Professor Si Chung-mou, former Head of the Department of Chinese Language Studies (CHL); Professor John Lee Chi-kin, Vice President (Academic) and Provost and Convener of the ‘Tomorrow Teacher: Life and Character Leadership Programme for Pre-service and In-service Teachers’; Dr Liang Yuan, Acting Head of CHL