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Tung Urges Better Education for Youth
The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Tung Chee Hwa, Monday urged better education for Hong Kong's younger generation.
Delivering a speech at a prize-giving ceremony of the Project Springboard, Tung said, "It is imperative for us to provide better education for our younger generations." "We have now entered a knowledge-based era, and power comes from knowledge and knowledge comes from education," he added.
Tung said he was disheartened to see on television disappointed and helpless students being turned away by school and denied the chance to fulfill their eager hope for further study. As in previous years, many Secondary 5 school leavers have to hunt everywhere for Secondary 6 or Secondary 5 school places, he said.
"Our society should not leave this as it is forever," he stressed. "The root of the problem is that our education system has failed to evolve with the rapid social changes."
"To address this problem, it brooks no delay to implement our education reforms and upgrade the quality of education," he noted.
Over the past four years, the government has made considerable investment in education and made every effort to push forward education reforms, Tung said.
The government spending on education amounts to 55.3 billion HK dollars (7.08 billion US dollars) this financial year, as compared to 37.9 billion HK dollars (4.85 billion US dollars) in the 1996/97 financial year.
"The future of Hong Kong is in your hands, and I firmly believe that you will forge ahead with tenacity and build a brighter future for Hong Kong," the chief executive concluded.
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