History
Ho Lap College is the first government-aided secondary school sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen. Its history dates back to 1961, when a committee was set up to deal with the establishment of a new school. Mr. Wong Wan-tin was elected as the committee’s Chief Commissioner. With government funding, the school’s foundation stone laying ceremony took place on 7 October 1966, the birthday of Master Wong Tai Sin. Mr. David MacDougall, Registrar General, was the guest of honour. That year was significant as it marked the 45th anniversary of Sik Sik Yuen. When Ho Lap College opened on 1 September 1969, it had 12 classes of about 500 Form1 to Form3 students. The opening ceremony was held in the same year in December, with Mr. J. Canning, former Director of Educator, as the guest of honour.
In order to provide students with a better learning environment, two major improvement programmes were implemented. In 1987, Sik Sik Yuen’s board of directors granted HK$6,000,000 for the construction of a new wing in the otherwise car-park area. The construction work started in early November 1989 and was completed in July 1991. The school had the honour to have Mr. Lan Hon-tsung, Regional Secretary, to open the new wing on 26 September 1991. The new wing consists of a number of dedicated facilities: Home Economics Room, Design and Technology Room, Science Laboratory, a computer room as well as two remedial teaching classrooms. The school’s facilities have been further enhanced under the School Improvement Programme (SIP) in 1997. A green plot was redeveloped into a new annex, with the addition of a new staff room, a conference room and four classrooms. A room on the ground floor was also reserved for the Parents Teachers Association Resource Centre, which hugely helps strengthen the relationship between the parents and the school. The annex under SIP was officially opened by Dr. Cheung Wing-ming on 26 November 1999, the school’s 30th anniversary.
Thanks to the donations of Sik Sik Yuen’s board of directors, alumni, teaching staffs, students, and parents, an air-conditioned gym was set up in 2004 as a celebration of the school’s 35th anniversary.
A nursery originally next to the annex has been converted into an English-Corner area in 2005. Over the years, it has been proven to improve students’ English standard by allowing students to use the language in a relaxing and intellectually stimulating setting.
Read more about this topic: Ho Lap College
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)