Centre News

2017/18 APCLC Scholar Practitioner Award

The Joseph Lau Luen Hung Charitable Trust Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change (APCLC) announces that Sr. Cecilia Wong Yeuk-han MH and Miss Shirley Wong She-lai MH have been chosen as 2017/18’s recipients of the APCLC Scholar Practitioner Award. This award is given annually to scholar-practitioners who have outstanding contributions, distinguished service, and professional excellence grounded in theory and research in the pursuit of school improvement and the betterment of student learning in HK and beyond.

Sr. Cecilia Wong Yeuk-han was Principal of schools sponsored by The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong for 30 years. In each and every school, she helped to improve learning opportunities and the lives of students, teachers and members of the broader community, leading with care, compassion while maintaining the highest of expectations. In 2009-2017, she took up the position of Episcopal Delegate for Education of The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong.

Miss Shirley Wong was Principal of TWGHs Secondary Schools for 20 years. Upon her retirement, she continued to work tirelessly on the front line of educational enterprise by taking up the jobs of Professional Consultant at Department of Educational Administration & Policy at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and part-time lecturer at The Education University of Hong Kong. She also serves as School Supervisor of St Claire Girls’ School.

As well as being outstanding principals and scholar-practitioners, focused firmly on improving student learning, Sr. Cecilia and Shirley have both dedicated incredible energy to building leadership capacity throughout Hong Kong. For more than ten years, they have been heavily engaged in the design, development and operation of a series of innovative leader development programmes for aspiring, serving and beginning principals. They have not only helped to design and contextualize these approaches, but also have been key players in connecting these programmes to the broader school leadership community. They have acted as coordinators, mentors and instructors and worked closely with universities and other professional partners which have positively influenced the professional lives of many principals in Hong Kong. These programmes are widely recognized internationally and have engaged thousands of leaders in Hong Kong since 2000.

Although Sr. Cecilia and Shirley’s formal achievements have made a significant mark on Hong Kong education, perhaps their major contribution has been the formal and informal mentoring of practicing and future principals and the leadership they has displayed within the broader education community. By modeling leadership, caring and student-centredness across the years, levels and organizations they have worked in, they are beacons for moral-based leadership and professional principalship.

In choosing Cecilia and Shirley as the award recipients, we considered several accomplishments. They display excellence in contributing knowledge by applying theory into practice and vice versa. Their efforts have substantively affected the operation and management of Hong Kong schools, and improved schools for the betterment of student outcomes.