Page 14 - 沙田蘇浙公學 40周年校慶特刊

Major Milestones

Being One of the First 100 EMI Secondary Schools in Hong Kong

One of the principles of our school’s
educational philosophy is to attach equal
importance to learning Chinese and English.
Since our establishment in 1978, Putonghua
has been adopted to teach Chinese-related
subjects, while in all the other subjects,
English is the medium of instruction (MOI).
To boost the English proficiency of our
students, native English-speaking teachers
(NETs) have been employed since the early
years and students are always encouraged to
learn English in a language-rich environment.

In 1997, the then Education Department
released the Medium of Instruction Guidance
for Secondary Schools and required
YEARS OF EXCELLENCE schools to launch mother-tongue teaching
in the following school year. For schools
demonstrating that they fully satisfied the
40 requirements necessary for the effective use
of English as MOI in terms of student ability, teacher capability and support strategies and
programmes, they were allowed to continue using English as MOI. Our school then submitted
the application for special permission in October 1997.

After a careful assessment of all the conditions necessary for an effective English learning
environment, we were approved to be one of the first 100 secondary schools granted the
English Medium-of-Instruction (EMI) status in December 1997 and therefore allowed to use
English for teaching all subjects.

In 2010, the Education Bureau implemented the fine-tuned MOI arrangements for secondary
schools. As the English ability of our F.1 intake had met the prerequisites of the MOI fine-
tuning policy over the years, our school was again permitted to continue using English as
MOI for all classes.

With the ultimate aim to help students learn well and be biliterate and trilingual, our school
has always put in place and will continue to implement policies and measures that help create
a language-rich environment conducive to the adoption of English as the MOI.

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