In my last column, I explored the nature of Hong Kong being a bilingual common law jurisdiction and the considerable advantages our next generation of lawyers will have if they are able to take advantage of those opportunities by being trilingual and bicultural. In an earlier column, I highlighted how unlike a bygone era, most successful lawyers would now have received their schooling all the way in Hong Kong rather than in boarding schools or universities abroad. Of the locally born senior counsel appointed this year, all of them attended school and pursued undergraduate law degrees in Hong Kong.
This is a sign of our schools and universities having reached the international recognition that they richly deserve. It was particularly pleasing to see the extremely high International Baccalaureate average scores in Hong Kong – which are head and shoulders above the world average – in addition to at least 73 “perfect” scorers, which is an incredible achievement by any measure.
More interesting still, as well as encouraging, was that if one looks at most of the schools with the highest averages, they are almost all schools where Chinese is taught, or those with a very high percentage of bilingual students. This destroys the myth once widely believed that you either need to go abroad or sacrifice Chinese language ability in order to obtain high grades in English language examinations and gain entry into competitive universities. This was and is a false choice.
I have had the distinct pleasure of being a member of the judging panel for the Sing Tao Inter-School Debating Competition for a few years. The level of ability and enthusiasm is extremely high. Having world-class schools and universities in Hong Kong is an immense source of soft power which we should treasure and develop.
José Antonio Maurellet SC is the Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association
