***********************************************

Following is a speech by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong at the seminar on IT in Education today (March 21):

Mr Kiesow, ladies and gentlemen,

May I first extend my warmest welcome to you. It is indeed a great pleasure to speak at today's seminar which draws together so many experts from Sweden and Hong Kong on information technology (IT) and on education.

It has been less than six months since my last visit to Sweden. Although it was only a brief visit, I had the opportunity to meet the Minister of Higher Education and other senior officials of the Swedish Government. I am pleased to know that we all share an important belief, namely, that IT is the blueprint for building our future and is the driving force for economic growth and expansion.

Our Chief Executive, the Honorable Tung Chee Hwa, has pledged that Hong Kong will be a leader in the information world of tomorrow. Indeed, Hong Kong is well poised to deliver this pledge. We have an extremely friendly and bilingual business environment; a well educated workforce; an independent judicial system; low tax rates; and a clean and efficient public service. And we are well supported by a huge hinterland, Mainland China.

What is more, we have possibly one of the most advanced telecommunications and information backbones in the world. Hong Kong is one of the first major cities in the world to have a fully digitalised telephone network. To encourage broadband coverage, five licences for operation of local fixed wireless networks have been issued, services of which will be available in May this year at the earliest. At present, the broadband network covers practically all business buildings and by the end of this year, we expect that residential coverage will reach 85%. There are about two million Internet users in Hong Kong, i.e. some 30% of our population. And despite the relatively small size of Hong Kong (about 1 000 km2, which is 450 times smaller than Sweden), we have over 150 Internet service providers. All this provide a nourishing business environment for on-line transactions, such as electronic banking, video-on-demand and other web-based services.

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been taking the lead to leverage on our well-developed telecommunications infrastructure, and to create the best possible IT environment for businesses to flourish. For example, an Electronic Service Delivery scheme will be launched in October 2000 to make our public services on-line. Simply by clicking the mouse, people will be able to apply for car registration, pay water charges, search job market vacancy information, and access other government information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have also established a public certification authority and enacted the Electronic Transactions Ordinance to provide a legal framework for electronic transactions.

An advanced communications network, an excellent IT environment, a modern infrastructure; all these are important. But more fundamentally, there must be the right people who can bring the above strengths and advantages together to make our vision come true. People, of course, have always been Hong Kong's greatest assets.

The Government's five-year IT in education strategy, announced in November 1998, is part of our plan to equip our young generations with the skills and attitudes necessary to meet the challenges of the information age. Capital expenditure of HK$3.2 billion (US$410 million) and recurrent expenditure of HK$590 million (US$76 million) have been set aside to implement various initiatives, such as providing IT training for our teachers, providing computers with internet access to schools, setting up multi-media learning centres, and developing students' IT learning targets at different stages. Mr S L Ma, from the Education Department, will be talking to you later this morning in more detail our initiatives on the promotion of IT in education in primary and secondary schools.

I should just add briefly that the advent of IT has also reshaped the landscape of the tertiary education sector. To ensure that our university students are IT literate, all our tertiary students are offered mandatory or optional computer courses. Some institutions require their students to attend certain IT courses or tests before graduation. Others have set up IT literacy benchmarks to ensure that their graduates will be competent in using IT in their future careers. In addition, institutions have endeavoured to ensure that all tertiary students are immersed in an IT environment, and all of them have free, ready access to computers and the Internet on campus. New web-based courses are being offered. Cyber teaching is becoming more and more common.

IT has opened up a totally new frontier for mankind. It reshapes how we live, learn, work and play. It offers exciting opportunities for social and economic progress. Today's seminar provides a perfect setting to discuss how IT may contribute to education, and to compare the experiences in Sweden and Hong Kong. I hope that you will all find the seminar stimulating and rewarding. And to our guests from Sweden, I wish you a pleasant and enjoyable stay in Hong Kong.

Thank you.

End/Tuesday, March 21, 2000

NNNN