Mu Kuang English School

The Mu Kuang English School is a secondary school on Kung Lok Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is a non-government school funded under the Direct Subsidy Scheme. History The school was founded by Elsie Elliott in Kai Tak New Village in 1954 with an enrolment of 30 squatter and refugee children. Classes were held under makeshift canopies, and Elliott supported the school financially by teaching in other schools. Andrew Tu Hsueh-kwei, whom Elliott married in 1985, became headmaster of the school. The school accommodation was doubled in size in 1958 thanks to a donation from Mr. N.V.A. Croucher. "Mu Kuang" means "yearning for light" in Chinese. The school was so named in reference to a "thirsting for the light of learning and truth". Elliott later quipped that the name came to refer to a literal thirst for daylight, since it was so dark inside the former British Army tent in which classes were initially held. Owing to the "extreme poverty and suffering" in the area, the school staff tried to undertake relief work near the school. A simple clinic was set up at the school for emergency treatment. A formal social welfare clinic, offering medical services and distribution of relief food, was set up at the school with the assistance of members of the Guild of Saint Helena in 1959.