How a brave Hong Kong principal turned a failing school into an innovative success

Taking over a school on the verge of shutting its doors was a risky career move, but principal Chu Tsz-wing is not a conventional educator. And in the end, his unorthodox administrative style helped turn the ailing institution around.

“We had two options then: one was to let the school close for good and another was to make changes,” Chu, 37, recalled telling the teaching staff on his first day at the helm of Baptist Rainbow Primary School in Wong Tai Sin in the summer of 2013.

Baptist Rainbow, located in a public housing estate, was once one of the city’s biggest primary schools. At its peak, it had 27 classes and 66 teachers.

But when Chu took over as principal, classes were down to six and only 14 teachers were employed. Only five new pupils were enrolled in Primary One at the start of the school year in 2013. The Education Bureau warned in a letter that the government would soon stop subsidising the school and would eventually close it due to its dwindling student numbers.

“Lots of people told me that my future would be doomed working at this school that was about to close,” said Chu, who quit a teaching job at a top school to join Baptist Rainbow. “But I am kind of a rebellious person who always wants to prove myself. I thought, if my innovative teaching method had previously worked in elite schools, then it should work in the less elite ones.”

The youngest staff member at the time, Chu urged the school’s teachers to change their old-fashioned chalk-and-talk teaching approach and embrace technology to nurture and prepare pupils for the future as part of a tech-savvy workforce.