Paul Yip
A new joint-school career-planning initiative called “Shape Our Future: WeCan! – Project WeCan Career Exploration Day” hosted by Wharf Holdings was launched last month. The programme serves about 50 schools in the current school year. The programme targets Form Four students and aims to enhance students’ self-understanding and motivation in career planning, and offers vocational assessments, job tasters, star talks, workshops and consultation sessions for students, teachers and parents.
More than 2,300 students, parents and teachers took part in the initiative. Many different types of jobs were offered by participating companies – in fields ranging from beauty care to sales, property management and social services.
Such jobs do not necessarily pay well, but they do provide job opportunities for those who don’t move on to tertiary education.
Furthermore, more than 50 per cent of our working population is in sales and service industries.
The students being supported by “Project WeCan” are not academic high flyers, but the schools are working very hard to provide them with a good education.
The chance of these students getting into university is low, but they still have to struggle with a curriculum which is designed for tertiary education. For some, the six years of high school study can be a demoralising experience as their other abilities cannot be fully developed through such an academically demanding curriculum.
It is indeed very unfortunate that the admission rate to government-funded universities has not improved much in the past decade to broaden their choice. Our young people can still find a job after completing high school, but they often waste much time and opportunity in searching for something that can help them develop a career due to inadequate preparation.
It is encouraging to see new resources being channeled into our school system to help our students realise their strengths and abilities. Also, the government has provided matching funds for those activities that can help students. The enthusiastic response from the community and the business sector is also encouraging.
Indeed, a whole village is needed to raise our children these days especially when there are so many dysfunctional families. Certainly more needs to be done to improve our wage system for low-income jobs, and better career development and skills training should be in place to increase the capacity of our young workforce. We need to count on these youngsters to ensure Hong Kong can develop further.
We are fortunate that more companies and organisations are now investing in our young people. Hong Kong should not excel only as a business centre but also as a society with a big heart – especially towards the disadvantaged.
At the same time, our economy should continue to develop in response to the ever changing environment in such a way that the talent of our young people can be developed, valued and appreciated.
Paul Yip Siu-fai is professor of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as We must develop abilities of less gifted youngsters. It was published on SCMP on Friday, 11 December, 2015. Please click here to find out more.