Letters | Like Singapore, Hong Kong must clearly map how it will future-proof talent

Readers discuss the need to train Hong Kong’s workforce as the digital economy gathers steam, the importance of applied science education, and a change in the qualification required to teach English at local schools

Hong Kong economy

Letters

Published: 11:30am, 24 Apr 2024

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At the recent Digital Economy Summit, the financial secretary outlined the recommendations of the Digital Economy Development Committee for advancing the digital development of Hong Kong. These include strengthening the city’s digital policy and infrastructure, facilitating local and cross-boundary data flow, supporting the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises and developing a sustainable talent strategy. Of all these initiatives, we know the least about how the government intends to prepare and nurture our workforce for the digital economy.

Talent is crucial to Hong Kong’s development into a digital economy. The government’s priority so far has been to attract talent from elsewhere. Hong Kong fell two places, to 16th, in the World Talent Ranking 2023 by the International Institute for Management Development, while Singapore moved up four places to 8th. What has Singapore done right?

Singapore launched SkillsFuture as a national movement almost a decade ago. The initiative seeks to build a culture of lifelong learning, so that Singaporeans can realise their fullest potential irrespective of their starting points. This is not just rhetoric. The government ensures that talent development is a cornerstone of every policy and new initiative.

For example, skills development is one of the pillars of industry transformation maps for strategic sectors, alongside productivity enhancement, innovation in products and services, and expansion to international markets. There is even an industry transformation map for training and adult education, in recognition of the important role this plays in raising business capabilities.

Singapore’s national artificial intelligence strategy, launched in 2019 and updated last December, is committed to developing a pool of 15,000 AI practitioners, among other things. Sector-specific AI training programmes to reskill and upskill workers will be run as part of industry transformation.

“Equipping our workers for life” is one of the seven themes of Singapore’s latest budget, released about two weeks before Hong Kong’s in February.

In the last policy address, the Hong Kong chief executive announced that the Employees Retraining Board would review its scope to better meet the manpower training and economic development needs of Hong Kong, and promote continuous learning and skills development for all. There will also be a new Digital Policy Office to formulate policies on digital government, data governance and information technology.

I look forward to the announcement of a holistic manpower development blueprint for Hong Kong, including reskilling programmes for the civil service to ensure it can move ahead with the digital economy.

Rachel Chan, North Point

Focus on applied sciences may turn city’s fortunes around

At last, Hong Kong has a university dedicated to teaching the applied sciences thanks to the vision of Hong Kong Metropolitan University (“Hong Kong’s first university of applied sciences reveals plan to train local pilots and other aviation talent” (March 21). Parents will be relieved that their children have another option for tertiary education.

More recently, the report, “Hong Kong attracted nearly 2,000 professionals earning at least HK$10 million annually, figures for last year show” (April 18), noted that, according to a survey carried out last November, of the successful applicants to the Top Talent Pass Scheme who had been in the city for more than six months and had secured jobs, 39 per cent were working in the financial, insurance and brokerage services sectors, 18 per cent in innovation and technology, and 17 per cent in commerce or trade.

The scheme seems to be skewed towards high finance and big money which Hong Kong is famous for. But what about the broader STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and maths) fields: applied maths, statistics, environmental sciences, marine biology, biotechnology, biochemistry, agri-technology and the like?

The new applied sciences curriculum at Hong Kong Metropolitan University is presumably designed to attract students to pursue a completely different direction. It is very satisfying to see collective wisdom and social consciousness pointing towards some kind of balance. Perhaps applied sciences education is what we need to move this city forward.

Philip S.K. Leung, Pok Fu Lam

Consider TOEFL for assessing teachers’ English

I refer to the letters, “Hong Kong assessing English teachers with IELTS shouldn’t be controversial” (April 11) and “Rethink lower qualifications for teaching English in Hong Kong” (April 16), discussing the Education Bureau’s decision to replace the Language Proficiency Assessment (LPA) with the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). While your correspondent on April 16 is right about LPA being able to more accurately assess a candidate’s ability to teach in the city, I agree with your correspondent on April 11 that IELTS could serve as an adequate substitute for LPA, given that other pedagogical skills will be tested elsewhere.

On the other hand, I wish to remind the Education Bureau that the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is an internationally recognised language proficiency test, which is about the same length as IELTS but slightly less costly. With its speaking and writing sections assessed collaboratively by human and AI, in terms of test result validity, TOEFL might be superior to IELTS which is solely graded by humans.

I urge the bureau to consider allowing aspiring teachers to provide TOEFL scores as evidence for their English language proficiency in line with the policies of many tertiary institutions around the world.

Simon Wang, Kowloon Tong

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