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Following is a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, to a question by the Hon Sin Chung-kai on the Continuing Education Fund in the Legislative Council today (December 5):
Question:
In respect of the Continuing Education Fund ("CEF"), the Labour and Welfare Bureau has introduced various new initiatives with effect from September 1, 2007 to further enhance the effectiveness of the CEF, including lifting the upper age limit of the CEF applicants to 65; and upon the implementation of the Qualifications Framework, courses designed in accordance with the Specifications of Competency Standards developed by the Industry Training Advisory Committee may also be registered as recognised courses under the CEF. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of courses leading to professional qualifications in information technology ("IT") which have been included in scope of the CEF since its introduction in June 2002;
(b) as the Report on the 2006 Manpower Survey of the Information Technology Sector published by the Vocational Training Council shows that the IT industry will face additional manpower demand and manpower shortage, whether the Government will place the IT industry as one of the specified economic sectors/skill domains under the CEF upon the conclusion of Specifications of Competency Standards for the information and communications technology industry, and include the learning programmes in the scope of the CEF if they are relevant to the qualifications and already listed in the Qualifications Register, to encourage people in the IT industry to attend those courses and support training work for the industry; if it will, of the detailed plan and timetable; if not, the reasons for that; and
(c) whether any measures are in place to ensure that course providers will offer different types of courses to cater for the learning abilities and needs of people from various age groups and strata; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) At present, subject to prior assessment by the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ), education and training courses that fall within eight specified domains may be registered as reimbursable courses under the Continuing Education Fund (CEF). These eight domains are business services, financial services, logistics, tourism, creative industry, design, language (Note 1), and interpersonal and intrapersonal skills for the workplace. While information technology does not fall within the specified domains, there are registered CEF courses which contain elements relating to information technology skills and knowledge.
(b) The issue of further expansion of the scope of the CEF was fully considered in a recent review of the CEF completed in May 2007 which concluded that further expansion of the CEF should tie in with and support the development of the Qualifications Framework (QF). The Legislative Council Panel on Manpower was consulted in 2007 and expressed support in this respect. Upon implementation of the QF, courses designed in accordance with the Specifications of Competency Standards (SCSs) developed by the respective Industry Training Advisory Committees (ITACs) under the QF (SCS-based courses) and accredited by the accreditation authority may be registered under the CEF. The QF is expected to be implemented within the second quarter of 2008.
The ITAC for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector was established in July 2005. It has completed drafting the SCSs for Software Products and Services and will continue to develop competency standards for other functional areas in the sector. In future, accredited SCS-based courses developed in the ICT sector may be registered under the CEF.
(c) The objective of the CEF is to provide subsidy to learners direct so as to encourage them to pursue continuing learning. It is up to applicants to make use of the subsidy to take part in the registered CEF course(s) that best suit their learning needs. It is also for course providers to design and organise courses that fall within the specified domains having regard to the market needs. They may, subject to prior assessment by the HKCAAVQ, apply for registration of these courses under the CEF. The Administration will continue to closely monitor the registered CEF courses to ensure their quality and smooth operation.
(Note 1) At present, language courses in English, Chinese (written), Putonghua, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Korean are eligible for registration under the CEF.
Ends/Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Issued at HKT 14:37
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