Former short track speed skater, Olympics gold medalist Yang Yang (right) pose with the three champions (from left) Huang Sihan, Zhao Nan and Fu Zhijun of the English speech contest after the final was held over the weekend.
Shanghai launched a new series of competitions called The Future for high school students to bring up the youths' social responsibility, innovation spirit and practical ability.
The finals of a social practice competition and an English speech contest of the series were held over the weekend. The series also includes a robot competition and a competition on the making of microfilms.
All the competitions open to senior high school students all over the city, including students from vocational schools and school for the blind.
"Our social circle is rather small and isolated, and such competition is a very good opportunity for us to reach out others in the society," said Wang Yun, a 12th grade student from Shanghai School for the Blind.
Wang's team won the second prize in the social practice competition on Sunday. Their project, in coordination with volunteers, aims to design extracurricular activities for the visually disadvantaged students to help them better fit into the world after graduation.
Wang himself also took the English speech contest, though did not make into the final round. "But the experience was still quite unique," he said.
The competitions were set up after a study over what the city's senior high school students are interested in and capable of at their age. They aim to meet different students' interest and give more students an opportunity to demonstrate their talents, according to Ren Bo, deputy director of the Department of School Affairs at the Shanghai Committee of the China Communist Youth League.
The series will be held annually in the city. More competitions of different kinds are expected to be introduced into the series in the future.
