Need not to mention, our society has been struggling under the devastating impacts of the pandemic. While we reach the 3-year mark of the “new normal”, the education sector has gone through significant changes along the way. As we continued to experience pandemic-induced school shutdowns, academic normalcy remains cumulatively out of reach for many students, educators, and parents. As an indispensable part of the Hong Kong education system for decades, the private education industry has strived hard to guide students through the challenges of online classes and the suspension of normal school life.
The 2022 HKMOC Award Ceremony brings together more than 60 guests and education centers with an aim to recognize and encourage all the efforts contributed by seasoned, private educators in town. As a co-organizer, the ILK team is here to highlight the main takeaways and all you must know about this award ceremony!
What are the HKMOC Awards?
As a veteran in the education industry, HKCEC has been committed to connect and unite like-minded experts in the sector and bridging up the gap between private educators, the government and the general public with enhanced communication. Under difficult times like COVID-19, HKCEC emphasizes on fighting for the rights and improving the business environment of the industry by acting as a recognized representative and the voice of the private education industry.
Established under the pandemic influence with a firm pursuit to provide quality education for parents to cope with the challenges brought by COVID-19 , ILK Learning leverages advanced technology to offer a wide range of course selection to parents in town. ILK’s founding concept coincides with the speech delivered by the Under Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, Dr. Bernard Chan Pak-li, JP at the ceremony: "Through respective education centres that make good use of technology and innovative thinking, we can help cultivate students' independent thinking, creativity, logic and problem-solving skills, and contribute to the construction of Hong Kong’s future talent pool.”
With a vision to acknowledge and express our appreciation to the dedicated educators in the city, under the challenging circumstances brought by the pandemic, ILK Learning and The Hong Kong Chamber of Education Centers (HKCEC) joined hands and initiated the HKMOC Awards.
All the winners were evaluated and selected by a joint effort of HKCEC and ILK Learning based on 5 major principles: economy, society, culture, academics, and technology. All the participants are nominated online anonymously. Details of the selection criteria are as follows:
Economical
Number of students/parents served
Sustainability and scalability of the business
Technological Application
Efficiency improved by the use or application of innovative technology in products, services, teaching models or working procedures
Cost reduction or significant revenue increase
Academic
Student performance
Appropriate classroom arrangements and learning outcomes
Cultural
Robust corporate and crisis management strategies
A successful product or service recognition with a good brand reputation
Social Responsibility
Adopt socially responsible business practices
With a sense of mission and to contribute to the society
The grand award ceremony of the 1st HKMOC Awards took place at Ballroom Centenary II - III Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel on the 25th of August 2022, with leaders and elite members of the local education sector as guests of honors, including:
Former Secretary for Education, Mr. Eddie Ng, GBS, JP
Member of the Legislative Council and Vice President of Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, Principal Mr. Chu Kwok-keung
Founder and CEO of Bridgeway Prime Shop Fund Management Limited, Dr. Edwin Lee
Honorary Advisor of HK Aided Primary School Heads Association, Mr. Leung Siu Tong, MH
Under Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, Dr. Bernard Chan Pak-li, JP
Principal of Tseung Kwan O Methodist Primary School, Mr. Eddie Lam Tak Yuk
Founder of SocioEducation and Researcher of Hong Kong Policy Research Insititute, Mr. Jacky Fung
HKMOC Awards - List of Awardees
The list of winners of the 1st HKMOC Awards in 2022 is as follows:
Final Thoughts on HKMOC Awards
With the purpose of commending the outstanding performance of a plethora of private education centers in these difficult times, the HKMOC Award selects distinguished education centers from a list that consist of more than 3,000 registered and nearly 5,000 non-registered institutions. The centers all provide excellent educational services in the field of academic studies, music, sports, arts and others.
Just as Mr. Leung Siu Tong, MH, Honorary Advisor of HK Aided Primary School Heads Association, made a message to the private education industry at the HKMOC Awards ceremony: "Different learning elements are changing with each passing day. It is not just teachers who pursue these elements, but this group of private classrooms to pursue them, and then work with schools to maximize the efforts. Let’s work together to provide and improve the learning experience for students. We need to formalize and recognize extra-curricular activities so that teachers and principals can accept this concept.” Principal Chu Kwok-keung, member of the Legislative Council of the Education sector and Vice President of Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, also shared a similar idea: “ Through close communication and cooperation with the government and various educational institutions, we optimize and stabilize the educational ecosystem in Hong Kong, and provide high-quality and diverse teaching to bring out students’ potential."
It is hoped that the award can serve as a huge affirmation and a token of hard work for all the participants, while at the same time reinforcing the professionalism of the centers. Families can establish faith and trust towards the award receivers accordingly.
Among all the cool, new features we bring to you with our new website launch, iKash is the most important highlight
What is iKash?
Simply put, you can use iKash as if it is cash, to pay for products or service listings on the ILK platform that you like. The exclusive product credit of ILK Learning, iKash is applicable as a payment method for all transactions you made with ILK - from signing up for courses, booking a service and reserving a spot in paid events, to paying for children’s games, toys and books - iKash can be used on basically everything that ILK offers.
You can easily earn iKash all year round with every purchase you made with ILK. The sum of your spending would be accumulated and eventually return to you in cash-equivalent iKash.
How to buy iKash?
In fact, all ILK members are eligible for iKash redemption.
To use iKash, simply log into your account before making any purchase with us. In the “Checkout” section, select iKash as your payment method to proceed to the normal, payment procedures.
No need to worry about your iKash balance in the account cannot cover the total cost of your desired purchase. You can choose to top up your account for a sizeable spending, or we also accept partial payment with iKash. You can use iKash to pay for part of the total amount due while at the same time, pick another payment option that we offer to cover the rest.
What if you can’t finish using iKash at one time?
While iKash is a non-redundable credit, you don’t have to worry about not being about to use them up at all! Despite our extensive range of education courses that promise to cater to your educational needs, you can also keep unused iKash in the account for a very long time. Currently, we don’t have an explicit expiry date for iKash.
You can also share the joy of using iKash with your friend by peer transfer. If both your friend and you are registered as ILK members, you can transfer your remaining iKash to them as a gift.
Who should use iKash and Why?
Designed for all of ILK Learning’s users, iKash is suitable for all moneysmart parents looking to spend wise and save money on quality education.
In order to get the most out of a convenient rebate program like iKash, here are few suggestions.
If you have your eyes on a few courses for a certain period, for example, summer holiday. Instead of enrolling for them one by one, you can sign up and pay the tuition fee all at once. A little preparation and planning before you sign up can go a long way toward helping you save. With iKash’s rebate nature, the more you spent with us in one order, the more you earn.
For those who participate in routine courses, consider also to purchase the course for a longer period. Again, bigger the spending might offer additional discounts or amount of rebate. In exchange of being a loyal student in the course by signing up in advance, you also save time and minimize the risk of forgetting to renew the course upon deadline.
The spending record in iKash is also another convenient step to jumpstart saving on education cost. By paying for courses and services with iKash, you can easily keep track on your spending at any time and from anywhere via our website.
Conclusion
A sincere innovation thoroughly designed by the ILK team, iKash is a product credit program that is dedicated to reward our precious member community. Not only can you save on education cost with iKash conveniently, you are empowered to monitor and watch your course spending anytime your want. Become ILK’s member and explore the power of iKash today!
Begin to Search Smart, Learn Smart with ILK Learning!
Wish to find out more parenting tips? Want your kids to acquire different skills and knowledge when staying at home? Check out ILK Learning’s Course Catalog to find THE course for your kids! Feel free to reach out for more information on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram! We look forward to seeing your messages!
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, many companies have begun to allow working from home, and Remote Work has become more and more common around the world. In addition to having more opportunities to spend time with your children, you also spend more time with your partner in close proximity for extended periods of time. The other half who should be the closest may become the biggest source of stress and even make you feel tired without having proper personal space to rest at home. Disputes between parents are more likely to affect children's psychological development and behaviour. In view of this, ILK invited Mr Wu, an experienced psychological counsellor, to offer some key points for getting along with partners, so that you two can find the most comfortable way to build a harmonious family together in this new era.
How do parental attitudes affect children's behaviour?
Remember this: Children under the age of 12 learn in only one way - using their eyes, not ears. The younger the child, the less vocabulary he or she understands. Therefore, they often learn to understand the world through vision. Hence, what they see affects their lifelong worldview.
It is conceivable that if parents reason or argue with their children every day, it is likely to have an indelible impact on their children's minds. Likewise, if you can teach your child some important concepts through behaviour, they will absorb them very quickly. Do you want to explain what "love" is? Let your child kiss you and associate the act of "kissing" with "love"; do you want your child to be polite? Just show them the behaviour you want them to do that defines manners.
It is often said that parents are the closest teachers to their children. Examine your own behaviour early and help your child learn to understand their surroundings in your way, which is commonly known as teaching by example.
How to deal with conflict between husband and wife?
Now that we understand that parental behaviour can affect a child's life, the stability of your relationship with your partner becomes a top priority. If there is constant conflict between husband and wife, the secret is to get to know your partner again and "go back" to dating times!
When dating, we all want to know if the other party is suitable for us, and we will start to pay attention to the other party's nice virtues and attractiveness. But after getting married, the relationship that only required love is enriched with life essentials and minor problems, making the relationship more rational. To make life better, it is human nature that we want to make our partner better and make ourselves happier. So, we start to give advice by finding out in what aspect the other party is not good enough and room for improvement, such as appearance, behaviour, facial expressions, etc. . In other words, we're picking the other half wrong. One mistake a day, 365 a year. Over and over again, relationships naturally carry negative emotions.
To regain the joy of being in love, you must restore the mentality of when you two first met. Spend time again appreciating each other's strengths, and stop using the "point deduction system" to pick on the other half or magnify imperfections. Otherwise, the longer you spend time with your other half, the more you will dislike him or her. To maintain the relationship between husband and wife, you both must spend time learning. You can choose to take relevant courses and gradually adjust your mentality.
How to reach a consensus on education methods?
One of the most common reasons for quarrels between couples is often the education of their children. Our own experiences, the way our parents raised us as children, and our observations and knowledge of other families as we grow up can all unconsciously affect us when we raise our children. When you and your partner come from different backgrounds, it can be difficult to fully agree on the other's approach to education. However, if you can look at this difference from a different angle, it can actually be turned into an opportunity. Let's say the wife comes from a stricter family and does things black and white but the husband comes from a very relaxed family where many things don’t matter. If we focus on one side, things get very extreme for the children. But if two people can respect each other's characteristics, they can complement each other's shortcomings, progress together and achieve parental balance.
Summary
Rather than saying that the pandemic affects family harmony, in fact, COVID-19 has only brought out the hidden problems of many families and forced us to face them. Even if there is no pandemic, the problem still exists. That's why we all need to learn to harness the power of resilience, gradually face new things and accept the pressures that come along with change, and progress over time.
ILK wishes you can find a way to express yourself as soon as possible and start building a beautiful new life for yourself.
Wish to find out more parenting tips? Want your kids to acquire different skills and knowledge when staying at home? Check out ILK Learning’s Course Catalog to find THE course for your kids! Feel free to reach out for more information on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram! We look forward to seeing your messages!
Doing what you have always been doing makes you feel safe because of the familiarity. This is human nature. As mentioned in the previous article, we must first step out of our comfort zones and learn to harness the power of “resilience”. While we start facing inner anxieties and fear after stepping from our comfort zones, we begin to pick up new ideas and things. How can we turn anxiety into motivation, learn to live with stress and even facilitate change? The following four steps will teach you to slowly enter the Learning Zone between the comfort zone and the pressure zone, and keep moving forward to build a good family relationship!
Step 1: Acceptance
To change the status quo, we must first accept the reality. Overcoming your inner hopelessness, adopting a positive and optimistic attitude, and unilaterally accepting that you can change the situation is the ultimate secret to making change. Try to look at the current situation from other perspectives and acknowledge the need for change. Remember not to push yourself too hard to achieve your goals in a short period of time. Remember maintaining a relationship requires more than one person's effort. You need to accept the fact that you and the other person (no matter which of your family member that is) need a certain amount of time and space to slowly embrace change.
Step 2: Goal
Once you've adjusted your mindset, you can begin to set reasonable goals and expectations. For example, if you want your child to be more focused on after-school tutorial classes, you must first define the definition of "focus". For adults, "sitting down" for a 45-minute class is probably not that difficult. But for a three-year-old, ask yourself honestly, would that be a reasonable task to ask for? Try to start seeing things from the child's point of view and re-evaluate the feasibility of your usual requests to your family members.
After finding the goal to strive for, it's time to explore the direction that you should work towards. This means finding specific ways to achieve the goal practically. If you want your kids to understand that you need your own space while working from home, you can tailor-make a new "character" in your world to help them understand what work means. Mr Wu mentioned a family case where the father put up the word "office" on his door, which aroused the curiosity of the children. Adults can take advantage of the curiosity and let the children play the role of a courier company employee to "deliver" documents to dad. Then ask the child to leave immediately upon "delivery" and spend time with dad when he gets off work. This case uses a fun approach to help children understand what work means by putting yourself in the child's shoes.
Step 3: Understanding
To change a person's (especially a child's) behaviour, one must understand the reasons behind it. Is there any reason to make the other party unhappy? Too often, parents are subconsciously ignoring the fact that they may be the root cause of their child's unhappiness or rebellion. Learn to take "people-oriented" as the principle of getting along with children, no longer stand in the high position of parents, but accept their feelings and emotional needs in order to truly understand them. If you can think from your child's point of view, you will be able to examine your own emotional management and control. When dealing with children, try not to amplify your anger. Anger is a hurtful and aggressive emotion with the ability to cause damage and should only be used against enemies, not your loved ones.
Step 4: Action
By reading through all the paragraphs above, I believe that you have fully realized the need to change and began to put things into action. Keep learning and practising and you can turn stress into comfort!
Summary
As long as you follow the above 4 steps, family problems can be solved easily. The next article will teach you how to make the most out of "resilience" to better communicate with your partner specifically, so stay tuned!
Wish to find out more parenting tips? Want your kids to acquire different skills and knowledge when staying at home? Check out ILK Learning’s Course Catalog to find THE course for your kids! Feel free to reach out for more information on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram! We look forward to seeing your messages!
Working from home has become more and more common over time. This new work mode may seem flexible and free, but it could gradually become a nightmare for parents with young children. Children staying at home for online classes and your significant other using the phone for work purposes at the same time when you are in a zoom meeting…with all these situations, working from home suddenly becomes an impossible task. Family members spend more time from day to night in a space-limited household - is it really a good thing or the other way around?
Under such circumstances, Dr. Rex Wu, psychology expert with 20 years of experience in psychology and counselling, believes that the trend of working from home is a rare gift. "Since I use zoom to teach, I am happier than before. I get to see and spend time with my wife, daughter and pet every day. If you have a good family relationship, you should be very happy working from home since you can see your family members every day."
In the eyes of this psychology expert, why are some families struggling to adapt to working from home? Dr. Wu believes that the difference lies in "the relationship status of the family itself". In normal times, everyone seems to get along well with no head-on conflict. It can be a result of “conflict avoidance”, and it is completely different from having "no conflict" at all. When you find that there are landmines all around you when the family walks together, this is a great time to reflect and make changes to the relationship.
"Happiness" is the source of high-quality family relationships
We strive to do our best every day- work hard, study, make money to live in a big house, etc. Have you ever thought about what are these for? Stanford University spent 75 years researching and found that human beings are always in pursuit of "Happiness".
If so, how can we achieve happiness? Stanford University has also done another study on this and finally came up with an answer: Quality Relationship. Society is built around four relationships: parent-child, husband and wife, self and interpersonal relationships. To explore the topic of relationships, the focus is never on changes in the environment, but on returning to the fundamentals of whether the relationship is in good quality.
Why does working from home cause so many problems? This is because human brain energy is very exhausted for daily survival needs and activities already. It is impossible for us to make changes in our lives every day or to learn new things around the clock. The brain then establishes "habits" that make us tend to do the same thing every day. Although it gets boring sometimes, it is more comfortable and does not require too much use of the brain. Living in a world of habit for a long time is often referred to as the "Comfort Zone". For example, working and commuting to the office from 9 to 6 every day and going back to school, are things that are within the comfort zone that we are used to.
When we do things that are not within our comfort zone and have never been done before, we will fall into the "stress zone" right away. It makes you feel uneasy. Simply put, change can be stressful.
As a new work mode, working from home is naturally in the "stress zone". For parents, because the inherent concept of "home" has suddenly changed and turned into an office, the change in the environment causes a feeling of frustration. For children, being stuck at home all day without socialising with peers and after-school extracurricular activities or parents’ attention during a day - all these are massive changes for their younger minds.
Step out of your comfort zone to let go of stress
As scary as it may feel to step out of your comfort zone, it's actually an instinct that humans use to adapt to their surroundings. We already have a mechanism in our heads to face things out of the comfort zone, a power that psychologists name as "resilience". The development of " resilience" basically defines a person's well-being. If it doesn't develop well, people would be stuck in their comfort zone day in and day out. If it’s developed well, you can adjust your mentality at ease from time to time and reduce stress as your life demands.
Only by learning to utilize the power of "resilience" can we calmly face pressure and improve family relationships.
Allow children to be disobedient and learn to use "resilience"
Many parents believe that the most important agenda of disciplining children is to make them "obedient". However, asking children to "be good" and "be obedient without talking back" is in fact requiring them not to change, not to think independently but to listen to their parents' instructions.
The secret behind helping children get rid of pressure and bravely maximise the effect of "resilience" to change, is to let them learn "disobedience"!
When working from home, parents tend to get irritated when their kids aren't paying attention during Zoom online classes. However, if children are not 100% focused on learning, does it mean that they are not well behaved?
First of all, parents should keep in mind that focus and concentration are two things. Focus is about having the power to control one's attention span, whether interested or not. People never need to concentrate on things that they are interested in. Research shows that children's attention spans are not fully developed until adolescence. In other words, children before the age of 10 do not have the "power" to focus but rely on instinct to focus on interesting, and fun things. If the curriculum is already boring, you shouldn't ask your child to "sit down and learn" - this would be an ineffective expectation.
To live in harmony with your child, you must first step out of your comfort zone and understand that instead, you should look for a method to raise your child's interest in learning. If parents can learn to accept new things or look at existing things from a new perspective, lots of problems will be solved naturally.
Summary
Spending more time with family members should be a blessing. As long as you step out of your comfort zone and develop "resilience", it is the first step to building a high-quality family relationship!
Looking forward to seeing more expert tips on this topic? Stay tuned for more articles from our “Stuck at Home” series!
Wish to find out more parenting tips? Want your kids to acquire different skills and knowledge when staying at home? Check out ILK Learning’s Course Catalog to find THE course for your kids! Feel free to reach out for more information onWhatsApp,FacebookandInstagram! We look forward to seeing your messages!
ILK Post 
