Press Release

 

 

LC: Speech by SEM on 2000 Appropriation Bill

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Following is a speech by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, in resuming the second debate on the 2000 Appropriation Bill at the Legislative Council today (April 5):

Madam President,

First of all, may I take this opportunity to thank Members for their valuable views on education and employment.

(I) Education

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I would like to talk about education first. In the Budget announced a short while ago, the Financial Secretary reaffirmed that education was an area to which the HKSAR Government attached the greatest importance. In the past few years, the growth in the appropriation for education has far exceeded the average growth of public expenditure. In 1996-97 financial year, the total expenditure on education accounted for 2.99 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product. This was increased to 3.8 per cent in 1999-2000. A further increase to 4.15 per cent is expected in the 2000-01 financial year; this has already exceeded that of Singapore, which stood at 3.6 per cent in 1998, and is only slightly lower than that of Japan, which stood at 4.9 per cent in the recent years.

The Government's current total expenditure on education represents 22.3 per cent of the total government expenditure, a proportion larger than those of many developed countries, such as the United States (14.4 per cent in 1995), the United Kingdom (12.4 per cent in 2000), Australia (11.5 per cent in 1998), Japan (16.7 per cent in 1997) and Singapore (20.52 per cent in 2000).

In the Budget, it is proposed that in the coming year, we will:

(a) spend $140 million to improve the School Textbook Assistance Scheme and the Student Travel Subsidy Scheme to help needy students; and

(b) set aside $800 million for an early start on education reform recommendations that warrant priority implementation.

Apart from recurrent provision, the Quality Education Fund will continue to provide additional resources for schools. It is estimated that over $500 million will be granted this year to support school-based education projects.

The Education Commission (EC) will soon embark on the third stage of consultation on education reform proposals. As rightly pointed out by the Hon Szeto Wah, education reform should be a gradual process building on the solid foundation of the existing system; while encouraging active participation of teachers, measures must be taken to ease their workload. We cannot agree with Mr Szeto more. Many members also pointed out that tertiary education is already taking up one-third of the total expenditure on education, and therefore in considering the allocation of new resources in education, emphasis should be put on basic education and measures which can genuinely enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning. We also concur with such a view.

Education is an important undertaking of the society as a whole. The Government and the entire community should make collective effort to foot the education bill. In many countries such as the United States, Korea, Japan, etc., resources from outside the government often make up a large proportion of the total expenditure on education. Whereas in Hong Kong, it is still the Government who pays for most of the education expenses. I look forward to comprehensive and extensive discussions on this subject among members of the public when the EC releases its consultation document in May.

Next, I would like to respond to a number of education issues, as follows:

School Improvement Programme

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We have always attached great importance to the maintenance of a favourable learning environment in schools. In the past five years, we have spent a total of $4.4 billion on the School Improvement Programme(SPI). Up to now, improvement works in about 300 existing schools have been completed and works in 80 other schools are in progress.

In view of the staggering increase in the cost of school improvement works in recent years, we consider it necessary to review the steps and procedures of the SPI to enhance cost-effectiveness and ensure proper utilization of public funds. To this end, we have commissioned a consultancy review and a report is expected to be ready by April this year. Meanwhile, improvement works on schools covered in Phases 1 to 3 which are already under way will proceed as scheduled. Of the 156 schools in Phases 2A and 4, improvement works for 47 schools will commence shortly. Some Members are concerned that works for the remaining 109 schools in Phases 2A and 4 will be shelved with no hope of seeing daylight again. We would like to assure Members that upon completion of the consultancy review, we will follow up on the recommendations to improve the cost-effectiveness of the SIP as soon as we can, and we will see to it that resources are allocated in the current financial year to enable projects which are cost-effective to proceed at an early date. We will also discuss with the schools concerned and deploy resources of the current financial year as far as possible for them to carry out urgent and minor improvement works first. In the event that major or urgent maintenance works is necessary for a school, we still can provide funding for works to be carried out immediately. Members can rest assured that the consultancy review will not in any way undermine the safety of schools and the implementation of any maintenance works.

Information Technology in Education

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A five-year strategy on IT in education was published in November, 1998 in a bid to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning by harnessing the powers of IT. For this purpose, we have earmarked huge resources for implementing various initiatives. More than one year has since elapsed and I am pleased to see that the IT culture has started to take root in schools.

To further promote IT in education, we plan to set up an education-specific intranet by the end of this year, which will serve as an on-line education resource exchange centre for all local schools. Our idea is to upload the education software developed by the Education Department (ED) on the website for use by teachers. On the other hand, we also encourage teachers to disseminate the teaching materials they produced among teachers through the intranet. Publishers and software vendors can also supply software through the intranet for teachers and parents to purchase. ED will closely monitor the contents of the intranet so as to safeguard students from being contaminated by indecent information materials. In addition, the intranet can also provide a convenient and effective channel of communication between students and teachers and among teachers themselves.

Tertiary Education

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In response to several Members' concern over the cost-effectiveness and quality of tertiary education, I would like to put forward the following three points.

Achievements of Scientific Researches

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In the past decade or so, research grants provided by the Government to tertiary institutions has increased four times to the existing amount of over $400 million a year, with an average increase of 30per cent recorded in the first five years. This investment has begun to bear fruit since about two years ago. Up to now 300 patents have been registered by the institutions, some of which were taken out by students. The institutions have set up over 50 research and development companies as well as more than 60 spin-off companies. We expect the number of these companies to multiply in the next few years. Last year we granted $126 million to support, over the next 5 years, three "Areas of Excellence" projects on information technology, business and economic strategy as well as plant and fungal biotechnology respectively. We believe that these researches have the potential of attaining recognized international standard of excellence and will facilitate the economic development of Hong Kong towards advanced technology and high value-addedness.

The Standard of Students

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We understand that in recent years, many people are concerned about the quality of our university students. To have a better grasp of information on this, we have commissioned a consultant to carry out a survey on the opinions of employers on major aspects of performance of local first degree graduates. The survey, which is expected to be completed in April to May this year, will provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of the quality of local graduates at work.

As a matter of fact, we are not lacking in outstanding talents among our university students. In the past two years, more than 300 local students were awarded international prizes. Furthermore, the University Grants Committee and the tertiary institutions will further strengthen the quality assurance mechanism, enhance the language abilities of our students, as well as upgrade the quality of teaching and scientific researches.

Private Universities

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We are of the view that our education system should be more diversified and we have been actively promoting the development of private schools since 1999. The development of private tertiary institutions, in our opinion, is also essential in the diversification of our tertiary education system and widen the choices of students. In this connection, the Government will provide $4.6 million for the Hong Kong Shue Yan College (HKSYC) for it to commission validation exercises for four proposed degree programmes. The validation, if satisfactorily completed, will pave the way for HKSYC to become a degree-awarding institution and eventually a private university.

Adult Education

I would like to take this opportunity to clarify some reports in the press recently.

Government's overall provision for the 2000-01 financial year for adult education, which also covers evening school course run by the Education Department, exceeds $81 million. This is larger than the actual expenditure in the past few years.

Just as all other public expenditure, the Government has to ensure that its subventions to non-government institutions for adult education is well spent and in a cost-effective manner. In spite of our stringent scrutiny, the success rate of organizations applying for funds to organize courses in recent years is close to 80per cent and the number of courses receiving government subsidies has also increased.

(II) Manpower Policy

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On manpower policy, we propose to earmark an additional recurrent provision of $300 million in the coming year for the launching of 7 new initiatives to ease unemployment and encourage life-long learning through a three-pronged approach, including to help people find jobs, to strengthen training and re-training and to encourage continuing education. The total recurrent expenditure on the programme area of employment in the next year will amount to $1.6 billion, representing an increase of about 18per cent over the past year. I have already briefed Members in detail on these 7 new initiatives at the relevant Special FC Meeting and meeting of the Panel on Manpower. I would now like to focus on an issue which is the centre of concern of many Members and that is, the employment and training prospect of low skilled workers aged over 40 with only junior secondary education or below in the face of economic restructuring.

Employment of Elementary Workers

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I totally agree that as the economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based, our greatest challenge in the area of employment is how to help low-skilled workers aged over 40 with only junior secondary education or below to pursue "value-addedness" so as to enhance their employability. Although the short-term employment prospects of these elementary workers will improve as a result of our economic recovery, we have not relaxed our efforts in providing active employment assistance and training for them.

Between January 1999 and February 2000, of the job-seekers who successfully found jobs through direct assistance from the Local Employment Service of the Labour Department, 11 681 were aged over 40. In other words, out of about three successful job-seekers, one belonged to this age group.

As providing training for elementary workers is one of Government's priority items, the Employees Retraining Board (ERB) was set up in 1992. The amount of grants provided by Government to the ERB has been increasing. From April last year to the end of January this year, more than 36 800 retrainees of the ERB were aged over 40, accounting for 55.7 per cent of total retrainees during the period. The placement rate for retrainees aged over 40 graduating from full-time courses was 74 per cent.

Many Members are concerned about the financial situation of the ERB. I would like to emphasize that the ERB has sufficient resources for all its activities this year. In fact, as at end of March this year, the balance of the Employees Retraining Fund is about $542 million. In ERB's estimates for 2000-01, the total expenditure is over $410 million, an increase by 7.8 per cent over the actual expenditure of last year. It is estimated that the total number of retraining places and the number of places in full-time courses designed for the unemployed will increase by 5.6 per cent and 16.3 per cent to 100 000 and 50 400 respectively over last year. I can give you my pledge that the Government will conduct a review on the long-term financial arrangements of the Employees Retraining Fund within this year.

Some Members criticized that the Budget has not taken into account the needs of older elementary workers. In actual fact, the measures to promote employment and encourage continuing education as announced in the Budget will not only benefit young school leavers, but the older elementary workers as well. For example, out of the 300 trainees in the pilot IT Assistant Course recently launched, more than one-fourth are over 30. Similarly, the "Project Springboard" is not only designed for S5 school leavers, adult learners can also participate and receive continuing education. Programmes under the project will be mainly skill-based, with emphasis on biliteracy and trilingualism, information technology as well as certain practical subjects, with a view to preparing students for employment and further education in future. There will be full-time and part-time evening courses under the project to meet the needs of different people. Further extension of the Non-means Tested Loan Scheme will also help ensure that all adults aspiring to learn will not be deprived of the chance to pursue further education for lack of financial means.

As our economy is becoming more and more information-based, we are fully aware it will be more and more difficult for the older elementary workers to find work in the next five to ten years. In order to formulate mid to long-term strategy to enhance the employability of older workers, we have commissioned the Hong Kong Institute of Economic and Business Strategy of the University of Hong Kong to carry out a special study. It will include an analysis of the employment prospect in the labour market for the older workers and interviews with employer groups and trade associations, with a view to collecting their views on the training and retraining needs of these workers. It is expected that the study will be completed by August this year. The results will be used to formulate strategies of training and retraining for these older workers in the longer term.

Information Technology Training

I do not agree with the Hon Sin Chung-kai's criticism that EMB is slow in responding to IT training. He will recall that a working group was set up immediately after our meeting with him and other representatives from the IT sector last October. With the active participation of the sector and the training institutions, we designed a brand new information technology assistant training programme within 2 months' time. This programme will equip the trainees with the basic IT skills to enable them to work as junior information assistant. The first three classes of the pilot course have commenced in February. As the response to programme has been encouraging, we have already earmarked more resources to increase the number of training places from the original 170 to 300, to regularize the training course and to provide at least 1 000 training places each year in the next two years to train up more junior information technology assistants to meet the needs of the market. We are also actively studying the feasibility of web based delivery of the course so that the private sector can participate and that more people can benefit from it. We will closely monitor the placement rate of the pilot course trainees and will provide more resources to further expand the course if there is such a need in the market.

Rapid development in IT has resulted in a shortage of IT manpower supply. This is a universal phenomenon. Even in the Silicon Valley of the United States, one third of its IT personnel had to be imported from other countries. We stand ready to consider any innovative and practicable IT manpower training programme which the Hon Sin Chung-kai and other Members may propose.

Occupational Safety

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Over the past few years, we have been encouraging employers to place emphases on occupational safety and health and extensively promoting the self-regulatory concept through legislation. Since 1996, the Labour Department has greatly increased its manpower resources to strengthen enforcement actions. Our legislative and enforcement endeavours have now begun to take effect. There was a discernable drop in the number of accidents at work for all sectors in 1999 over the previous year. The total number of workplace accidents dropped by 16 per cent from 63 526 to 53 263. Improvements in occupational safety was particularly evident in the construction industry, with the number of accidents dropping by 36per cent and the accident rate, 17 per cent. Of course, we will not be complacent about this. Quite to the contrary, we will strive harder in the coming year to strengthen legislative and enforcement actions.

Conclusion

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I believe that my foregoing presentation on education and manpower has clearly explained the HKSAR Government's commitment to these two major policy areas. Though facing a deficit budget, we still propose additional resources for the implementation of a series of new initiatives in order to train up the necessary manpower to meet the needs of Hong Kong's social and economic developments. I trust that Members will give their full support to the measures as well as the funding proposals.

End/Wednesday, April 5, 2000

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