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Government responds proactively to challenges of ageing population
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     The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said today (June 15) that the Government had responded proactively to the challenges of an ageing population by promoting among elders lifelong learning, engagement in community activities and healthy living.

     Speaking at a ceremony to mark the establishment of the Third Age Academy by the Bank Consortium Trust Company Ltd (BCT), Mr Cheung said that the BCT Third Age Academy shared the same goals as the Government by encouraging third agers to participate in continuous learning activities, thereby enhancing communal bonding and raising financial literacy.

     Mr Cheung said, "At present, one out of eight Hong Kong residents is aged 65 or above. The ratio will rise to one in four in 24 years' time.

     "We should come to grips with this challenge by tackling it up-stream proactively through turning our growing elderly population into healthy, happy and harmonious senior citizens rather than downstream through reactive and expensive medical service, institutional care and counselling."

     To this end, the Labour and Welfare Bureau and the Elderly Commission launched the Elder Academy Scheme in early 2007. Elder academies are run jointly by school sponsoring bodies and social welfare organisations to promote continuous learning, and encourage elders to widen their social networks, maintain physical and mental well-being and foster a sense of worthiness while acquiring knowledge.
 
     The number of elder academies in primary and secondary schools is expected to increase from 78 this school year to about 90 in the next academic year. Eight tertiary institutions have also joined the scheme to offer elders the opportunities to pursue learning at universities.

     "To ensure the sustainable development of the scheme, the Government has allocated $10 million to set up an Elder Academy Development Foundation. The foundation will provide support to school sponsoring bodies and social welfare organisations to jointly run elder academies, and provide funding for the development of elder academy courses at the tertiary institutions," Mr Cheung said.

     The Government is also co-ordinating the setting up of a dedicated portal for elders to provide one-stop information service on elderly services and will soon launch an Expression of Interest exercise to invite proposals from interested organisations providing elderly-related services. It is hoped that the portal will help them expand their circles of life through the Internet.

     Mr Cheung applauded BCT's decision to launch the Third Age Academy in conjunction with the Open University of Hong Kong to contribute to the well-being of the elders and wished the academy every success in enabling the third-agers to live their Third Age to the full. "This is a shining example of corporate social responsibility even in times of global economic downturn and uncertainties," he said.

Ends/Monday, June 15, 2009
Issued at HKT 19:00

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