Kowloon was primed for development when the Convention of Peking was signed in 1860 and Britain occupied Kowloon Peninsula south of Boundary Street and Stonecutters Island. Many foreigners came and resided in Tsim Sha Tsui. The Hung Hom area was home to heavy industries, such as shipyards, cement factories and power plants. Yau Ma Tei was a popular Chinese commercial and residential area where private commercial activities prospered, making it the main gathering place of the Chinese community in the early 20th century. Following World War II, in response to the fast-growing urban sprawl, the government launched reclamation works in Kowloon Bay to develop residential areas and the airport, and Kwun Tong was developed to become Hong Kong’s first satellite city.

Driven by population growth and socio-economic development, the demand for education in Hong Kong surged. School sponsoring bodies based on Hong Kong Island became aware of the emerging education needs on the peninsula and began to broaden their education services across the harbour. Although the cityscape of Kowloon has undergone numerous changes, the earliest roads and historic buildings can still be observed today. We can discern how the old town and the new urban areas have fused, tracing the passage of time within the district. Both continuing and discontinued schools from different eras are situated across Kowloon. They form part of the community’s history and provide proof of the changes in development of the city and its education systems over time.

This book is the second edition of A City’s Educational Heritage: Stories of Kowloon Schools. It provides a comprehensive perspective on the development of education in selected schools in Kowloon and Hong Kong, covering the early urban development of Kowloon and local education history, and including interviews with the school community. Readers are guided through the familiar landscape to revisit landmarks, discover the traces of transformation and recall the school life of earlier decades, including the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, allowing them to develop an understanding of how people, places and events in the district interacted with each other in the context of educational and urban development.