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Archive > Year 2004 > ITSD > Speeches and Presentations in Year 2004
Keynote Speech by Mr. Alan Wong, Director of Information Technology Services at the International Seminar on e-Education and e-Learning
"Hong Kong - An Evolving e-Learning Society"
28 - 06 - 2004
Professor Young, Professor Chao, Dr. Fong, distinguished speakers, ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning. I am pleased to be invited today to speak at the International Seminar on e-Education and e-Learning.
Technological development has been advancing at an unprecedented high speed. Today, every bit of useful information can be at our fingertips with a simple "click" to the Internet - of course, if only you know how to use the computer and you have access to one. School education has been evolving from a largely teacher-centred to a more interactive e-Learning approach. Many governments and business enterprises have also been providing e-Learning programmes to their staff to enhance their productivity and core competence directly or through outsourcing. This seminar will give you all an excellent opportunity to share and exchange views on issues relating to e-Education and e-Learning.
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region first set out its blueprint for developing Hong Kong into a world class digital city in a strategy document entitled "Digital 21", in 1998. In March this year, we published the new 2004 Digital 21 Strategy, with "Sustainability and Opportunities" as the main theme. There are eight main action areas. One of them is "human resources in a knowledge economy". To maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness, the Government has committed to prepare Hong Kong people, especially the younger generation, to become self-initiating lifelong learners. IT in Education plays a major role in achieving this objective.
IT in Education in Hong Kong
In 1998, apart from the Digital 21 Strategy, the Government also promulgated a five-year plan on IT in education, that is the "Information Technology for Learning in a New Era" strategy. Now, five years down the road, all schools have been provided with the required information infrastructure enabling teachers and pupils to be connected to the Internet. On average, there are now 91 and 247 sets of personal computers in each primary and secondary school respectively. They are connected by broadband to the Internet, to which over 60% access by optical fibre cables. A total of 46,000 teachers, and 4,600 teaching assistants, have completed IT training programmes at various levels.
Information Technology in Education¡VWay Forward
The Government is committed to sustaining IT development in education and making efforts to equip Hong Kong's students for the information age by fostering collaboration among schools, parents and the community. The Government published a consultation paper, entitled "Information Technology in Education - Way Forward" in March 2004, seeking public opinion on our e-Education strategy. The updated strategy will be finalised and announced later this year.
The main themes of the consultation paper are, first, the development of "Information Literacy" for students, and second, the professional development of teachers so that they are fully competent in taking on the new IT curriculum and in making pedagogical innovations. In order to enable school heads and their associates to effectively integrate IT into school planning, teaching as well as communication and collaboration, it is proposed that support would be given to help them establish their own visions and goals, and to build teams appropriate to their school contexts. The development of e-Leadership and IT in education will also be incorporated in their continuing professional development. Besides, the Government will also encourage the interested parties such as educators, tertiary institutions and publishers to undertake various initiatives in areas of training and education software development and to produce quality digital resources.
e-Learning in Schools, Tertiary Education and Vocational Training
The Hong Kong Education City (HKedCity), corporatised in 2002 with government's financial support, offers a variety of services including information on IT in education, teaching and learning resources, and quality online communities as well as direct services to schools, teachers, students and parents. One of its objectives is to forge private and public partnerships for fostering and promoting e-Learning and e-Business platforms in Hong Kong. The HKedCity website is one of the most popular education portals in Hong Kong, having an average of over 3 millions page views per day.
In early 2003, Hong Kong was plagued by the SARS epidemic. The HKedCity had responded promptly and launched a number of initiatives in order to minimise the adverse impact on education by leveraging on the enormous potential and capability of the Internet and IT. More than one million students, through HKedCity's e-Learning portal and virtual classrooms, got their teaching lessons and homework assignments at home. The full power of e-Learning and online education had been amply demonstrated. This e-Learning project has brought HKedCity a great honour: it won the Computerworld Honours Medal of Achievement, which is based in San Francisco, in April this year.
I would like to name two other projects, which are directed primarily at schools. The Information Technology Education Resource Centre of the Education and Manpower Bureau has designed a series of e-Learning programmes for secondary school students. Secondly, the Quality Education Fund has provided a total of HK $100 million in support of the 361 education projects in May 2004. The development of an e-book learning platform and a game-based learning platform are two fine examples of the e-Learning projects.
Our tertiary institutions are better endowed than the schools. They provide state-of-the-art e-Learning solutions and packages for their professors, researchers, teachers, and of course students, for example, the Online Universal Learning (SOUL) System launched by the SPACE, the web-based teaching portal established by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the CityU e-Portal of City University of Hong Kong, and the Web-based Teaching and Learning (WebTL) of Hong Kong Baptist University.
The Vocational Training Council, in collaboration with the private sector, has developed an e-Learning continuing professional education package in order to facilitate life-long learning via e-Learning platforms.
e-Learning in the Government
The Government has been a keen supporter of e-Learning. Four years ago, the Civil Service Training and Development Institute has already set up a Cyber Learning Centre (CLC) to provide e-Learning facilities and services for all civil servants. Presently, the CLC portal offers over 100 web courses and 60 job aids covering subjects such as languages, management, China studies, and resources on personal effectiveness, health and well-being. There are 38,000 registered users ranging from senior officers to junior and staff on the frontline. User satisfaction is high. According to a user survey conducted in last February, 93% of respondents were satisfied with the quality of the learning resources.
Individual departments have also launched e-Learning projects focusing on business specific and professional training to provide just-in-time learning for IT professionals, engineers, disciplinary officers, scientific officers, social workers and housing officers. My Department is a pioneer in adopting e-Learning. During the past four years, we have hosted web-based learning programmes on our Intranet and the Internet; set up our own e-Library with a good collection of e-books; launched various incentive programs to encourage e-Learning; and developed our own knowledge management portal for on-line sharing and collaboration. The e-Learning culture in Government is definitely growing.
Bridging the Digital Divide
To ensure that the entire community will benefit from IT development in enhancing the quality of life, the Government has installed over 5,000 sets of personal computers with Internet connection at convenient locations across the territory for free use by the public. The locations include community halls, District Cyber Centres, Post Offices and non-government organizations. Free or subsidised technical training programmes are also provided to people with no prior knowledge in the use of computers.
In 2000, the Government launched the "IT Hong Kong" campaign to promote the awareness of IT in the community which is still going on. It includes, among other things, the provision of free IT awareness courses, promotional activities and information portals.
All these promotional activities have contributed towards the enhancement of the community's IT literacy, which in turn stimulates the demand for more e-Education programmes.
The Government will continue to work with the IT industry, the universities, continuing education institutions such as SPACE, and the community to promote e-Education and e-Learning in Hong Kong. Apart from enabling Hong Kong people to equip themselves adequately to meet the challenges posed by economic restructuring, and the changing needs of a knowledge-based economy, e-Education performs another important social function, that is, a means for enhancing social mobility. E-Learning programmes enable us not only to acquire more knowledge and qualifications but also retrain ourselves entirely. This function is especially useful to those people who did not have the opportunity to receive higher or professional education in their younger days. There are plenty of e-Learning programmes and self-learning packages which help working adults to make their dreams come true.
I am sure you will enjoy today's seminar and find the speeches, presentations and discussions informative and stimulating. I would like to congratulate the organisers, that is, SPACE and the Macao Polytechnic Institute, on their success in organising this seminar. To our friends from overseas, I would also like to extend a warm welcome to you and wish you an enjoyable stay in Hong Kong. Thank you.
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