Published: 2:30pm, 5 Sep, 2022
I am with your correspondent on the need to give Hong Kong students a global education (“Give Hong Kong students a global education to ensure city’s competitiveness”, August 26).
The education system mentioned in the letter could also be described as “education culture”. If it is done right, all moving parts will grow and multiply positively, a symbiotic effect. And culture gets passed down from generation to generation.
Between the ages of 35 and 50, I worked for two multinational corporations headquartered in New York and briefly, Bologna, Italy. After leaving a cushy corporate life, I ventured into angel investment targeting small start-ups in North America, hence I was blessed to be able to see the two sides of the commercial world.
Working and travelling in different countries for over 30 years, I met and worked with many graduates at home and abroad. Here, I’d simply describe them as “Hong Kong graduates” or “world graduates”. Some in the Hong Kong group were bright with solid academic backgrounds. They were polite, mild-mannered, law-abiding young people – all great qualities. What they lacked, however, were some of the qualities that could help them advance in their jobs.
Local secondary schools and universities place way too much emphasis on book knowledge to the neglect of things outside the classroom, including English skills, soft skills, public speaking skills (both Chinese and English), knowledge of world affairs, geopolitical issues, history, and arts and culture, and the ability to think critically and independently.
May I suggest that parents should not push their children to get a college degree. Chasing after some letters behind one’s name is a foolish act.
Kids have many different talents. I still remember what my school principal, the late Dr S. Young, told us at the graduation ceremony 55 years ago: it is far more rewarding and fulfilling to be a successful woodworker than a miserable banker.
Philip S.K. Leung, Pok Fu Lam