Vocational Education and Training around the world
Hong Kong: Vocational Education, the Economy and Issues
INTERNATIONAL | Jill Gientzotis is an independent
researcher and writer in Vocational Education and Training
To stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market, we must constantly upgrade the capability of our work force,’ said Mr Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to the 45th Anniversary dinner of the Hong Kong Management Association in December 2005. ‘We must continuously embrace new knowledge and skills in order to face future challenges at work and to remain competitive in an increasingly globalised economy.
Content
Hong Kong became the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China on 1 July 1997. In this agreement, China has promised that, under its ‘one country, two systems’ formula, China’s socialist economic system will not be imposed upon Hong Kong and that Hong Kong will enjoy a high degree of autonomy in all matters except foreign and defence affairs for the next 50 years.
Hong Kong’s economy has moved away from manufacturing and is now
services based. The service sector makes up 89.9% of the economy, industry
10% and agriculture 0.1%.
Hong Kong has a major corporate and banking sector and her economy is highly dependent on international trade. Hong Kong has extensive trade and investment ties with China.
Hong Kong is also one of Asia’s biggest media players. The territory has one of the world’s largest film industries and is a major centre for broadcasting and publishing, despite anxious monitoring of the impact of reunification with the People's Democratic Republic of China.
The major industries in Hong Kong are textiles, clothing, tourism, banking, shipping, electronics, plastics, toys, watches and clocks. If the public sector is excluded, the largest sector of the labour force by occupation is wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels at 43.9% followed by financing, insurance and real estate 19.6%, community services 18.8%, manufacturing 7.5%, transport and communications 7.1% and construction 2.9%.
The Vocational Education and Training (VET) System
To cope with the development of a ‘knowledge
based economy’ and
the corresponding manpower demand, the government has set a target of 60%
of senior secondary school leavers to have access to post-secondary education
by the academic year 2010/11. The overall participation rate in post secondary
education for the 17-20 age cohort has increased from around 30% in 2000
to 38% in 2005. The educational attainment of the workforce has increased
dramatically. 10% of the workforce had tertiary education in 1985 and by
2004 that had grown to 27%.
The Education and Manpower Bureau advises the Government on the co-ordination, regulation and promotion of vocational, post secondary and continuing education sectors. It also advises on manpower needs and the disbursement of funds to training providers.
Hong Kong believes that to ensure sustainable manpower development amidst the rapidly changing world, articulation among academic, vocational and continuing education needs to be developed through the establishment of a Qualification Framework.
The Quality Framework and its associated Quality Assurance mechanism was endorsed in February 2004. The Hong Kong Quality Framework consists of a hierarchy of seven levels, each level containing generic descriptors, which describe the common features of the qualifications at that level. They contain four aspects:
- Knowledge and Intellectual Skills
- Processes
- Application, Autonomy and Accountability
- Communication, Information Technology and Numeracy
The Qualifications Framework is designed to be applicable to all sectors in order to facilitate the interface between academic, vocational and continuing education.
Specification of Competency Standards
The Education and Manpower Bureau is assisting various industries to establish
their Industry Training Advisory Committees (ITACs) consisting of employer
associations, trade unions, professional bodies and other stakeholders. These
committees are to be entrusted with the specification of competency standards,
which will become a blueprint for the industry’s training programmes
and qualifications.
Nine Industry Training Advisory Committees have been established: Watch and Clock manufacturers, Printing and Publishing, Chinese Catering, Hairdressing, Property Management, Electrical and Mechanical Services, Jewellery manufacture, Information and Communications Technology and Automotive.
After the Specification of Competency Standards is finalised, training providers may develop appropriate training programmes accordingly. The programmes and related qualifications will be recognised under the Quality Framework if they are quality assured by the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation (HKCAA).
Under the Qualifications Framework, qualifications are not confined to academic and training attainment. A Recognition of Prior Learning mechanism developed by individual industries is in place to recognise existing workers' skills, knowledge and work experience. With qualifications so obtained, employees may pursue further studies at different levels to obtain higher and wider qualifications.
Credit Accumulation and Transfer System
To facilitate lifelong learning, employees require flexibility in the mode and pattern of learning to cater for their work and family responsibilities. A Credit Accumulation and Transfer (CAT) system will provide the flexibility to suit individual circumstances and minimise duplication in training. With a CAT system, learners can systematically accumulate the credits of learning and training gained from various courses with a view to converting the accumulated credits into a recognised qualification. The development of the Qualifications Framework will facilitate CAT arrangement between sectors and training providers by providing a unified platform and common benchmarks.
It is further planned that Specified Competency Standards developed by industries
will support Career Oriented Studies in senior secondary schools, which will
provide students with greater choice and diversity of learning experiences
as well as enabling them to master the basic skills required by various industries.
To ensure the credibility of qualifications awarded by a wide range of education and training providers under the Qualifications Framework, the Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications Bill was introduced into the Legislative Council on 6 July 2005.
According to the Bill, HKCAA will be specified as the Accreditation Authority and the Qualifications Register Authority. It is tasked with the responsibility of assuring the quality of qualifications recognised under the Quality Framework. Also, it is required to administer the Qualifications Register. The Bill will enable HKCAA to assess academic and vocational programmes conducted by non-self-accrediting institutions. As such, self-accrediting institutions will not be affected. As in Australia, self-accrediting institutions comprise almost wholly of the university sector.
The HKCAA has been developing guidelines for operators to go through four stages of quality assurance to gain recognition for their organisations and learning programmes. The Council has adopted a peer review approach in quality assurance, and is developing a pool of subject specialists to cover professionals and experienced practitioners in 35 new vocational sectors.
The Vocational Training Council advises the government on the measures
needed to ensure a comprehensive system of vocational education and training
suitable to the developing needs of Hong Kong. It also institutes, develops
and operates schemes for training operatives, craftsmen, technicians and
technologists to sustain and improve industry commerce and services.
The Vocational Training Council is also responsible for the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education with nine campuses in all, as well as training and development centres, and skills centres. The Institute of Vocational Education offers courses at higher technician, technician and craft levels leading to the awards of higher diploma, higher certificate, diploma and certificate.
The Council further established a School of Business and Information Systems in 2001 to run self financing full time higher diploma programmes. The VTC offers three skill centres for vocational training for people with disabilities and monitors the operation of another two operated by non-governmental organisations.
Apprenticeships, trades and other training needs
The Vocational Training Council also administers the Apprenticeship Ordinance. This includes the operation of 21 Training Boards and five general committees. The training boards assess manpower needs for various industries and commercial sectors and the five general committees are responsible for specific training areas common to more than one sector of the economy. These areas are apprenticeship and trade testing, information technology training, management and supervisory training, training of technologists and training for the disabled.
These issues were identified from newspaper
coverage in the South China Morning Post, over a week in February/March 2006.
The emphasis on lifelong learning is a recurrent theme of educational reforms in Hong Kong, for example, during 2002 Hong Kong established the $5 billion Continuing Education fund, which covers five economic sectors: logistics, financial services, business services, tourism and creative industries; and three skill areas: languages, design and interpersonal workplace skills.
With both Chinese and English in common use, government has been promoting the use of Chinese as the medium of instruction and enhancing the language proficiency of the students. The government’s aim is for the students to be biliterate (ie master written Chinese and English) and trilingual (ie speak fluent Cantonese, Putonghua and English)
The South China Morning Post of 25 February 2006 reported upon a study
into how education inequality affects student achievement. Academics warned
that inequalities in society could spill over into an education system that
is currently quite equal. A recent UN study has found that student scores
in countries with high equality, including Hong Kong and Finland, were higher
than those with an unequal system, such as the United States and Argentina.
The argument is that growing differences in access to quality education between
the rich and the poor will hamper Hong Kong’s ability to meet its educational
goals.
Thousands of teachers in Hong Kong have demonstrated, accusing educational reform of imposing increased pressure and workload. This was brought to a head by the suicide of two teachers, apparently due to stress induced by the pace of reform.
‘The amateurs are leading the professionals. They don’t understand that teachers are a very special brand of people,’ said Timothy Ha Wing-ho, Principal of St Paul’s College. He claimed that education reforms placed too much emphasis on quality control and were creating mountains of paperwork that deterred teachers from ‘going the extra mile’. He called on the bureau to adopt a more collaborative approach when dealing with school sponsoring bodies and other education groups as they were key partners in implementing reforms. ‘You should not treat them as enemies,’ he said, claiming the Education and Manpower Bureau was largely run by administrative officers who lacked any background in teaching.
As jobs for workers with low educational attainment are disappearing rapidly
while demand for workers with higher education continues to grow, the government
also proposes a mechanism for the Recognition of Prior Learning. In 2001
the government introduced the Skills Upgrading scheme, providing focused
skills training for workers with lower educational attainment. Since its
inception the Scheme has trained over 136,000 workers in 23 industries.
Special funds were allocated in the last budget for attracting more full time tertiary students from abroad. This includes mainland students from China. As in Australia, the overseas student market has been targeted as an important component of educational provision, but not necessarily for the same reasons. More mainland students are seeing their future in Hong Kong and their numbers in the university sector have quadrupled since 2001. The Hong Kong economy is entwined with growth in China. The special status of Hong Kong provides an important platform for many mainland Chinese businesses to expand their operations. There is a growing number of Hong Kong based offices set up by mainland companies and the Hong Kong administration has established a special skills based admission scheme for ‘Mainland talents and Professionals’ (South China Morning Post 27 February 2006)
But I will leave the last word on the challenges facing Hong Kong to a
student in a letter to the South China Post. Kwan Kin-Chow, an Associate
Degree student cited a Chinese proverb that exhorts, 'take 10 years
to nurture the trees, take 100 years to nurture men'.
Education is for the long term. It requires farsighted and systematic policies that can see into the future, as well as respond to immediate pressures. Perhaps the ability to plan over time will be what distinguishes some countries from others in the international desire to stay ahead in a globalised economy.
Hong Kong Qualifications Framework
Speech by Mr Donald Tsang, Chief Executive, HKSAR to the 45th Anniversary
Dinner of Hong Kong Management Association 12 December 2005.
