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School News
24 Oct, 2018
10 : 00
Renowned pioneer in education, Dr Betty Chan Po-king, CEO and School Supervisor of Yew Chung International Schools (YCIS) and Yew Wah International Education Schools (YWIES), visited Shanghai recently to celebrate two major milestones: the 2thh anniversary of the establishment of YCIS Shanghai, the city’s oldest privately operated international school, as well as the recent establishment of the Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education (YCCECE) in Hong Kong, the first ever specialist early childhood education tertiary institution in Asia.
Dr Betty Chan and Professor Paul Yip celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Yew Chung International School of Shanghai
The celebration was part of the annual Founder’s Day for YCIS and its sister school, YWIES, and was held at the YCIS Shanghai Hongqiao Campus, which opened in 1993 as the school’s first campus in Shanghai. The campus is now one of five YCIS campuses in the city, which offer a unique multicultural and bilingual approach to education for international students aged two to eighteen.
Dr Chan, the daughter of Yew Chung’s founder Madam Tsang Chor-hang, was joined at the event by Professor Paul Yip Kwok-wah, Chairman of the Yew Wah International Education Foundation, and students from the five Shanghai campuses. Students from Yew Chung and Yew Wah campuses in Hong Kong, Beijing, Chongqing, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Tongxiang, Lingang, and Silicon Valley in the US joined via a live video link. Additional guests included government officials, alumni, retired senior school administrators, community organisations, media outlets, faculty and staff, and parents.
Students of YCIS and YWIES gathered at YCIS Shanghai to celebrate Founder's Day
Dr Chan highlighted the journey Yew Chung has taken since its humble beginning when her mother opened a small Hong Kong kindergarten in 1932, to now being present in 20 locations across mainland China, Hong Kong, and the US and leading the way for international education. Dr Chan then announced a new landmark in education: the establishment of the Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education in Hong Kong, Asia’s first ever specialist college in Early Childhood Education, offering a four-year honours bachelor’s degree programme.
With a lifelong commitment to her mother’s vision of the importance of Early Childhood Education and an already world-renowned focus on advancing educational pedagogy, the establishment of the college was a natural next step for the Organisation, in order to make a lasting impact on society.
“For children to have the best start in life requires us to provide them with the very best teachers. By providing quality training for Early Childhood Education teachers, we are planting the first seed in the lives of the next generation. We have therefore come full circle, with Yew Chung and Yew Wah providing education from ‘B to B’, from Baby to Bachelor,” said Dr Chan.
YCCECE has received tremendous support from the HKSAR Government, which not only authorised it as the first specialist institute entrusted by the government to offer formal teacher training and certification in ECE, but also awarded the college a permanent campus in Tin Wan, Aberdeen, Hong Kong. Currently, YCCECE is in the process of obtaining degree recognition by the mainland Chinese government.
The campus of Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education, the first and only specialist institute of early childhood education in Asia.
As students at YCCECE come from different social backgrounds and various parts of the world, many of whom require financial support to study at the college, but all of whom share a dream of serving and nurturing their country’s next generation, Dr Chan therefore called upon the schools and greater community to support the students so that they could fulfil their dream of becoming the next generation of Yew Chung Educators.
On a day of reflecting on how far Yew Chung and Yew Wah have come over the past 86 years, Dr Chan inspired the audience with her pioneering vision and dedication to her mission of providing world-leading education, giving them an exciting look into the future of an organisation that will forge ahead and continue to shape the minds of generations to come.