HONG KONG (UCAN) – The launch of a new book on the mission of Jesuits in Hong Kong, particularly in education, has prompted a Jesuit educator to point out challenges and opportunities lying ahead for education in the territory.

Father Alfred Deignan, superior of Hong Kong’s Matteo Ricci community of the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), says the many changes in store for education in Hong Kong will challenge teachers.

He offered these comments to UCA News on Nov. 18 at the launch of “Jesuits in Hong Kong, South China and Beyond: Irish Jesuit Mission — Its Development 1926-2006.” Jesuit Father Thomas J. Morrissey, an Irish historian who has a doctorate in the history of Jesuit education, wrote the book. About 100 guests — Jesuits, alumni of local Jesuit-run colleges, as well as teachers, friends and journalists — attended the launch at Wah Yan College on Hong Kong Island.

Among the changes to which Father Deignan referred are: shortening high-school education from seven years to six from 2009, extending university education from three years to four from 2012, and limiting the number of students in a school classroom to 25 starting with the 2008-2009 school year.

Moreover, the Catholic diocese of Hong Kong is negotiating with the government about an education ordinance requiring all government-aided schools by 2010 to set up an Incorporated Management Committee that must include representatives of teachers, parents and alumni. The local Church is worried that the ordinance will not allow Catholic school-sponsoring bodies to realize their vision for education.

Nobody likes too many changes, Father Deignan admitted. Even so, the Irish missioner said, he thinks local teachers are ready for the changes. He also noted that local education has seen many improvements, such as plans to develop the Hong Kong Institute of Education into a university.

“A good opportunity to set up a Catholic university” exists in Hong Kong, he added, since the Church is building an institute that will offer diploma and degree courses by 2010. The facility is in Tseung Kwan O, a new town built on reclaimed land at the eastern mouth of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor.

He also pointed out that his own community would try to help if asked, and Jesuit Father Stephen Chow agrees with his superior’s view. The Chinese priest told UCA News on Nov. 18 that the Jesuits would be glad to offer help if needed, but the diocese should lead the effort to found a Catholic university.

Father Deignan explained that he wanted to record the Jesuits’ education ministry for some years, so he invited Father Morrissey to write the book.

The author told guests at the launch that his 840-page book, with more than 200 photos, presents real stories and gives an overall picture of the community’s ministry. It is an historical account of the Irish Jesuits’ mission in Hong Kong as well as mainland China, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore, particularly in the fields of education, social work and media.

According to the book, Irish Jesuits were invited here in 1926 by Bishop Enrico Valtorta, then apostolic vicar of Hong Kong, who was looking for “educationalists” to “establish a high-class secondary school for boys.”
In 1990, as many people chose to leave Hong Kong before the 1997 handover of the territory from British to Chinese rule, the Jesuit province openly affirmed it would stay on, to show “solidarity with the poor since only the poor have no choice but to remain.”

Meanwhile, the government-run Hong Kong Institute of Education gave Father Deignan an honorary doctorate on Nov. 13. The honor applauds him for putting Jesuit pedagogical principles into practice and for making Hong Kong’s two Jesuit-run Wah Yan colleges the territory’s most respected high schools.

It also recognizes him for revitalizing moral education, resulting in the government releasing its Guidelines on Moral Education in 1981, and for promoting the development of the whole person in schools in the 1990s.

Besides the Wah Yan colleges, Jesuits in Hong Kong run two Catholic university hostels and a retreat house, and also teach at the Holy Spirit Seminary College. They are credited with founding the Credit Union Movement, Catholic Marriage Advisory Council and the Industrial Relations Institute.