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About one thousand participants took part in the Education Bureau (EDB)'s forum on life planning education today (November 10) to galvanise collective efforts in enhancing life planning and career guidance support for the younger generation.
The forum aims to help consolidate ideas on life planning education and forge stronger partnership among the EDB, schools, business organisations, social service groups and parents in supporting students to lead a fruitful life, the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-Kim, said, when welcoming school principals, teachers, students, parents, representatives from school sponsoring bodies and Business-School Partnership Programme (BSPP) partners to the forum.
He noted that the EDB has, starting from the 2014/15 school year, provided a recurrent subsidy of about $500,000 to each public sector school operating classes at senior secondary levels to strengthen life planning education with a view to supporting students to prepare for further studies and career development.
Mr Ng explained the concept of life planning education using "V PASS", which represents "values, paths, attitude, self-understanding and skills". As "V" can be used as meaning "we", he said, that "V PASS" also refers to community support, which is also crucial to the successful implementation of life planning education in addition to the Government's promotion.
In his keynote speech, the Dean of Education of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Professor Alvin Leung, said career and life planning is an integral part of education in many nations around the world. Career guidance is the general strategy through which guidance is delivered to enhance the competence of students in planning their future education pathway, to formulate their life and career goals, and to make a successful transition from school to work and multiple life roles in the adult world.
At today's event, Mr Ng presented certificates to 19 BSPP student ambassadors in recognition of their service in promoting the EDB's BSPP. He was joined by the Permanent Secretary for Education, Mrs Cherry Tse, and about 90 business partners for the BSPP 2014/15 Kick-off Ceremony at the life planning education forum.
Six BSPP student ambassadors took charge of the sharing session, during which they interacted with the audience on BSPP experiences. The session was followed by a discussion involving career masters, the chairman of the Committee on Home-School Co-operation, school principals, business partners and representatives of non-government organisations on how the community would contribute to life planning education from different stakeholders' perspectives.
Giving concluding remarks at the end of the forum, Mrs Tse noted that in addition to providing relevant guidelines, the EDB offers enhanced support to schools, such as increasing places for professional training; identifying Professional Development Schools to disseminate successful experiences; enhancing the BSPP to provide experiential learning; revamping the career guidance website to provide more career-related information to teachers, parents and students; organising thematic career talks to keep parents and students abreast of the latest information on further studies, vocational training, career opportunities, trends of working world, and the development of different industries and professions; and conducting visits to schools to give on-site advice on life planning education in the school context.
Ends/Monday, November 10, 2014
Issued at HKT 18:41
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