Response to the Consultation Document on the Aims of
Education
Hong Kong Coalition of Service Industries
March 1999
The Hong Kong Coalition of Service Industries welcomes the comprehensive review of the
education system launched by the Education Commission. The following paragraphs represent
the views of members of the Coalition.
Vision
Hong Kong needs an education system that will take the SAR into the 21st
century as a first class international city. To that end it is important first to
establish a vision of what we want from educating the young.
Members of the HKCSI feel that that vision should be of students who are innovative and
creative, who are individuals with character, rather than merely administrators who follow
instructions. Hong Kong’s education mindset needs to be refocused from over-learning
and examinations to more personal development.
Furthermore, as an international city, we should aim to have every secondary student to
be proficient in both spoken and written Chinese and English.
The Schools
The experience of the previous decade has been that the large sums of money invested in
tertiary education has not been as effective as expected. There should be a rebalancing of
efforts with the reform beginning from childhood education. Good habits such as reading
should be developed early on, as it would get more and more difficult to alter
youngsters’ behaviour.
More resources for the primary levels of education will also enable schools to achieve
smaller sizes for classes.
A greater effort is required to standardise the quality of schools of different
“bands”. Since the banding is the result of an exam-oriented curriculum, the
need for such differentiation should be reduced if, as we suggested, the exam-orientation
is replaced by an emphasis on personal development. Having said that, the special needs of
gifted pupils will need to be provided for.
On school management, a motivated school administrator makes a difference, in the same
way as a good manager does for a company. School principals should thus be trained to be
good managers who can influence the teachers, assign work according to talent, and
cultivate the atmosphere of learning effectively.
Just as public companies need to improve their corporate governance through appointing
more non-executive directors, schools will benefit from more “outside” expertise
including that of parents and businessmen in their decision making and in generally
running the schools successfully.
Role of parents
Parents are major users of education. Our system should be changed in such a way that
their contribution and influence is reflected. They should be encouraged to play a bigger
role in the running of the schools, such as by strengthening parent-teacher associations
or by making parents serve in the schools’ governing bodies.
Teachers
In the last 10-15 years, their sub-degree qualification has meant that the school
teachers only come from the pool of secondary students who have not been able to go to
university. This has affected the general quality of teachers. Moreover, the reward
structure for teachers, which is more similar to that of civil servants rather than other
professionals, has not been conducive to upgrading their quality.
Like all other professions, the teachers need to constantly modernise and improve their
quality. As with other sectors, they would benefit from more competition through opening
up the teaching profession to outsiders, as well as revamping the reward system to make it
more performance-related. This will encourage more competent people to join the
profession.
At present, the career structure of our teaching profession is not very attractive to
our elite graduates. Besides being reasonably well paid, they should have good prospects
such as becoming school principals or decision makers in educational policy.
Business sector
The business sector is concerned that university graduates seem no longer as versatile
as before, that young people in general do not seem to have the same diligence and work
attitude, and that many intelligent people, whilst perfectly accomplished as
administrators or managers, seem to lack imagination or the ability to innovate. Above
all, they worry for Hong Kong’s future competitiveness, especially as the territory
has become a knowledge based service economy for which “human capital” is
critically important.
The HKCSI believes that the business sector is eager to play a constructive role in
reforming the education system. Among other things, the involvement of the business sector
could give direction to educators as to what the market is looking for. Our vocational
schools, for instance, have to be market driven to produce service oriented young people
with the skills required by the manpower market.
We are also concerned that there is insufficient interface between the educators, the
students and the business and industrial sectors. There should be a forum for the
government, tertiary institutions and professional institutions to meet and discuss
specific matters relating to curriculum development, so that students will not only learn
about theories but also applications. There should be more opportunities for students to
broaden their views and to be counseled on the practical aspects of learning, through more
joint programmes between teaching institutions and the business sector.
English language
For Hong Kong to remain an international city, it is vitally important for people to be
able to conduct themselves in English. There is a perception among the business community
that Hong Kong’s advantage here is being eroded, and this should be redressed.
English is a must, both in secondary education and university. A longer term aim is to
consider introducing multiple language requirements into the universities.
More resources should be diverted to language education, and to encourage a more
multi-cultural learning environment. This means more overseas undergraduates should be
admitted into the universities. In the longer term, secondary schools should also be more
internationalised.
