Wah Yan College, Hong Kong

Infobox School
name = Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
zh-c|c=香港華仁書院
latitude = 22.27408
longitude = 114.17615


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caption =
location =
streetaddress = 281 Queen's Road East
region = Wan Chai
city = Hong Kong
state =
district =
province =
county =
postcode =
postalcode =
zipcode =
country =
coordinates =
schoolnumber =
schoolboard =
authority = Society of Jesus
religion = Roman Catholic
denomination =
oversight =
affiliation =
authorizer =
superintendent =
trustee =
founder = Mr Tsui Yan Sau Peter
specialist =
session =
president = Fr. Stephen Chow, S.J. (Supervisor)
head of school =
headteacher =
head_label =
head =
chairperson =
principal = Mr. George S. P. Tam
viceprincipal = Mr W. S. Lo; Mr K. C. Kwok
dean =
faculty =
administrator =
rector =
chaplain = Fr. William Lo, S.J.
director =
custodian =
staff =
ranking =
bar pass rate =
roll =
MOE =
ceeb =
school code = WYCHK
LEA =
ofsted =
testaverage =
national_ranking =
classrooms =
class =
classes offered = 26
avg_class_size =
ratio =
SAT =
ACT =
graduates =
gender = Male
lower_age =
upper_age =
houses = Berchmans, Xavier, Kostka, Loyola
schooltype = Secondary school
fundingtype = Grant-in-aid
type =
system =
fees =
tuition =
revenue =
endowment =
budget =
enrollment =
products =
age range =
grades = F.1 - F.7 (Equivalent of Grades 7-13)
medium =
language = English
campus = Mount Parish
campus size = 20,000 m²
campus type =
Hours_in_Day =
athletics =
conference =
slogan =
song =
fightsong =
motto = "In Hoc Signo Vinces"
("In this sign you shall conquer")
accreditation =
rival =
mascot =
mascot

sports = Athletics, badminton, basketball, cross country, fencing, football, orienteering [Orienteering is not listed as a sport team in the college's student handbook. Orienteering activities in the college are maintained by an ECA club in the school which is an affiliated club of Orienteering Association of Hong Kong. Also see cite web|url=http://www.oahk.org.hk/info/ec.htm|title=Executive Committee and Affiliated Clubs|author=Orienteering Association of Hong Kong|accessdate=2008-01-02] , swimming, table tennis
patron =
team_name =
nickname =
school_colours = Red, green, blue, white
yearbook = "The Star"
publication =
newspaper = "The Starlet"
opened =
established = 1919
founded =
status = Open
closed =
students =
pupils =
alumni = See below
nobel_laureates =
enrollment = 944
enrollment_as_of = 2007-09-01
gradeK =
grade1 =
grade2 =
grade3 =
grade4 =
grade5 =
grade6 =
grade7 = (F.1) 160
grade8 = (F.2) 168
grade9 = (F.3) 157
grade10 = (F.4) 151
grade11 = (F.5) 149
grade12 = (F.6) 92
grade13 = (F.7) 68
other_grade_label =
other =
communities =
feeders = [http://www.puawyps.edu.hk/ Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School]
free_label = Brother school
free_text = Wah Yan College Kowloon
free_label1 = Scout Group
free_text1 = [http://xvhk.wahyan.net/ 15th Hong Kong]
free_label2 = Red Cross Youth Unit
free_text2 = 34th
free_label3 =
free_text3 =
free_label4 =
free_text4 =
free_label5 =
free_text5 =
footnotes =
picture =
homepage = [http://www.wahyan.edu.hk http://www.wahyan.edu.hk]

Wah Yan College, Hong Kong (WYCHK ; demonym: "Wahyanite", pl.: "Wahyanites") is a grant-in-aid secondary school in Hong Kong. It was founded on December 16, 1919, by Tsui Yan Sau Peter (1889–1980). It is a Roman Catholic secondary school for boys run by the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus. Fully subsidized by the Government of Hong Kong, WYCHK is a grammar school using English as the medium of instruction. It has an enrolment of approximately 960 with 58 teachers and Irish Jesuit Fathers. The present principal of the college is Mr. Tam Siu Ping, George.

In September 2007, the college officially endorsed the following Jesuit Vision Statement for their vision in education: “We offer a holistic, liberating and transforming Catholic education within a learning community for students and staff to become progressively competent, committed, compassionate, spiritual, and ethically discerning persons with a universal heart contributing to the welfare and happiness of all, in particular the poor and the neglected.”

History

Chronology

The beginnings

The College was founded by Mr Tsui Yan Sau Peter on December 16 1919 on the 2nd floor of 60 Hollywood Road. On the first day of lessons, there were only 4 students. In the few years that followed, the College had also used 54A Peel Street and 33 Mosque Junction as campuses. As the number of students continues to arise, the College moved to a new campus at 2 Robinson Road (the present site of Bishop Lei Int'l House and Raimondi College) after Lunar New Year, 1921. On October 1 1922, the College was listed as a Grant-in-aid school. In 1924, a new branch school of the College, now known as Wah Yan College, Kowloon, was established. A hostel in Wah Yan opened in 1927. In the same year, the first Irish Jesuit father, Fr John Neary, came to Wah Yan as a teacher of Religious Knowledge.

In the early days of Wah Yan, the grades were not named as Forms 1-7, but Classes 1-8 instead. The "classes" were numbered in reverse order: Class 1 was equivalent to present day's Form 6 (the equivalent for Form 7 did not exist at that time), Class 6 was equivalent to present day's Form 1 and Class 8 was equivalent to present day's Primary 5.

Wah Yan under the Irish Jesuits

In 1932 the College was gradually transferred to the Society of Jesus, after a long series of negotiations between the original administration and the Jesuit fathers. The transfer was completed on December 31, and Fr Gallagher, S.J. replaced Mr Lim Hoi Lan as the headmaster. The school was also given a new name: College of Christ the King.

In 1933, the College published its first volume of its yearbook, "The Star". House system was introduced in 1934. In 1940 the hostel was closed down.

Wartime Wah Yan

Japanese troops invaded Hong Kong in December 1941. Classes were suspended as a result. Fr Gallagher and Fr McAsey were interned by the Japanese.

During the War, Wah Yan continued operations in Macau for a period of time. [ [http://www.wahyan.edu.hk/schstaff/history/wyhisrev1.html Wah Yan History Review 1] ]

There was another Wah Yan set up during the occupation (called "Wah Yan Chung Hok", meaning "Wah Yan middle school") which was closed down shortly before the War ended, due to the reason that the school "was the worst in the lack of teaching of the East Asia spirit".

Post-war development

After the Japanese troops surrendered, the College reopened on September 8 1945. Later in the year, Wah Yan Middle School was re-established as the Chinese stream of the College. In March 1946, the organization of the Wah Yan Dramatic Society, mainly consisted of alumni from the college and Wah Yan College, Kowloon, was commenced, and officially formed next year. Its first production was "The Thrice Promised Bride".

A night school was started by the College on February 17, 1948. In the next year, an afternoon school was also opened. In 1950 the Chinese stream of the College was closed down.

In 1951, the classes were renamed as forms: Class 1 into Form 6, Class 2 into Form 5, and so on. Class 7 and Class 8 were renamed as Primary 6 and 5 respectively.

In 1952 the afternoon school was also closed.

Queens Road East "Mount Parish" era

In 1954, construction for a new campus at Mount Parish, Wan Chai started. On September 27 1955 the new campus was formally opened by Sir Alexander Grantham, then Governor of Hong Kong.

The school newspaper, "Starlet", was established in 1964. In 1971, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong helped to manage the then Pun U Primary School while the Pun U Association remaining the school sponsoring body. The primary school was renamed Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School, and was establishd as the feeder primary school of the College. [ [http://puwy.no-ip.info/overview/introduction.htm Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School] ] The night school was closed in 1984. The streaming to Arts and Science was started in Form 4 in 1986.

On April 12 1987, the Gordon Wu Hall to the north of the main building was opened. In the same year Wah Yan got its first "10 A" in the HKCEE.

On May 8 1992, heavy rainfall caused a severe landslide to occur at the junction of Kennedy Road and Queens Road East. It killed a driver passing by in his car. The landslide caused the Laboratory Block to sink. Cracks were all over the playground, and a worsening crack in the Classroom Block even had to be covered up with stainless steel plates. In the same year Wah Yan got 3 "10 As" in the HKCEE. Six classrooms (2H, 2K, 4H, 4K, 6S2, 7A) were demolished in 1993 due to the landslide. They were rebuilt and were reopened in 1998. [ [http://www.wahyan.edu.hk/schstaff/history/timeline.php History of Wah Yan - Timeline] ]

In 2000, Wah Yan has got 2 10As, of which one of them, Jonathan Choi (蔡宗衡), went to Stanford University after Form 6, and the other, Caleb Yip (葉文健), went to University of Michigan.

The website of the school was first prepared by Dr Ashley Cheng in 1994. In 1997, the Parent-Teacher Association was established. In 1998, all classrooms were installed with air-conditioners.

chool Development Project

As the campus of the College starts to age, there had been plans to redevelop the school since 1995. However, the initial plans were aborted due to lack of funds and local law restrictions on architecture. In 2001 the Education and Manpower Bureau planned to upgrade all existing schools in Hong Kong to millennium standard, and the College successfully applied for part of the necessary funds for redevelopment. The School Development Project (SDP) was formally launched on January 26 2003, and works were officially started on May 25 2003 with the demolition of the old music room block.

The original aims of the School Development Project were to:
*Upgrade the school campus to millennium standards
*Provide extra classrooms required by the "through-train" education mode (this had been proved unnecessary since the school has decided not to adopt the "through-train" mode, mainly because of the declining academic standards of the students entering the College directly from Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School)
*Construct a new assembly hall that can accommodate all students at the same time [ [http://www.wahyan.edu.hk/sdp/pics/book.pdf SDP Brochure] ]

The total cost is estimated to be HK$103.72M. It consists of 3 phases:
*Phase 1, which involves rebuilding the existing music room into a 6-storey multi-use complex. The cost was HK$38.9M.
*Phase 2, which is an extension of Phase 1. The cost was HK$4.82M.
*Phase 3, which involves rebuilding the hall. The cost is estimated to be HK$57M.

Funding for Phase 1 is by the Hong Kong Government's Quality Education Fund and the School Improvement Programme. Funding for Phases 2 and 3 are by fund-raising campaigns hosted by the school.

Phases 1 and 2 (New Annex) have already been completed and formally opened on January 31 2006 by Mr Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Phase III consists of a new school hall annex with a much larger hall that can accommodate all the students in the school. The annex will also house five extra classrooms and a lecture theatre. Phase III was originally estimated to be completed by December 2006; however the lack of funds had greatly delayed the completion time. Works for Phase III had not started yet and fund-raising is still in progress. [ [http://www2.wahyan.edu.hk/about/sdp/sdp.html Wah Yan College, Hong Kong School Development Project] ]

Achievements

*The Red Cross cadet group of the college has secured first place in the annual drill competition for 5 years consecutively since 2003.
*Wah Yan College, Hong Kong's Scout Group (15th Hong Kong Group) won the Carlton Trophy in 2004.
*In 2007 the student organisation of the college participated in the Lunar New Year Stall Competition co-organized by Shell and the Hong Kong Youth Federation, and won the grand prize of $10,000. [ [http://hk.news.yahoo.com/070318/12/23vru.html Mingpao, 營「宵」有道 華仁生奪獎, 19 March 2007 (From Yahoo! News)] ]
*In 2008, Marvin Chung Man Ting, who is one of the students from Wah Yan, achieved eight A's and two 5-stars in Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. After studying Form 6, he will then enter University of Hong Kong under the Early Admission Scheme and will study Actuarial Science or Medicine.

Principals since 1919