April 23 is World Book Day. On that day, the Education Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government held the “2026 Citywide Reading Week – Reading Without Boundaries Sharing Session and Joint Primary and Secondary Schools' Half-Hour Reading Activity” at the main stadium of the Kai Tak Sports Park. A total of 1,119 teachers and students read together on site, while more than 30,000 teachers and students participated both online and offline, successfully setting a Guinness World Record for the “Largest Multimodal Reading Lesson.”
The Education Bureau stated that Secretary for Education Choi Yuk-lin, who is currently visiting South Korea, pre-recorded a video to introduce the book Walk On to teachers and students, encouraging them to make space in their busy lives for more reading, more walking, and more experiences of the world with all five senses. She mentioned that reading, like walking, has great power: every act of reading is a spiritual adventure, and every book lets readers see a different world. In books, you can slow your pace, think quietly, and find the strength and courage to face life. Therefore, even when life is busy, everyone is encouraged to make more time to read and enjoy the company of books.
The Bureau said that, witnessed by Professor Zhu Xinhua of the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Faculty of Humanities at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Dr. Chan Chi-kin, Chairman of the Learning Resources and Support Committee of the Curriculum Development Council, over a hundred primary, secondary, and special schools and more than a thousand teachers and students on-site, together with over thirty thousand teachers and students online, successfully challenged the Guinness World Record for the “Largest Multimodal Reading Lesson.”
An official Guinness World Records adjudicator attended the event in person to present the certificate, which was accepted on behalf of the Education Bureau by Acting Deputy Secretary for Education, Choi Man-yi.