Effective workers are what our city needs
Language requirements make working for Hong Kong's civil service a distant dream for most non-Chinese. Those determined to serve the community may already speak English, but plans can quickly unravel when confronted by written and spoken examinations in our other official language, Chinese. The conditions mean that people who may have valuable skills to offer are being passed over. Perfection in linguistics also does not take into account that our city is ethnically diverse.
The government does not keep statistics of the ethnic make-up of civil service ranks. We can only assume, given the language requirements, that all but a small percentage are Chinese. The Civil Service Bureau is looking into how to measure composition by race. But token representation is not what we need; rather, our city has to have the right people working for it so that the needs of the population can be properly met.
This newspaper's story yesterday about an ethnic Pakistani man born here who speaks five languages highlights the problem. His being able to communicate in English, Cantonese and three South Asian dialects made little impression on police handling his job application. They seemed only interested in the quality of his written Chinese. That he could well have helped serve our tens of thousands-strong South Asian community did not appear to matter.
Statistically, 95 per cent of Hong Kong's 7 million people are ethnic Chinese. The remaining 350,000 or so who live and work here represent a wide mix of nationalities and racial backgrounds. They are in large part the reason why Hong Kong can call itself an 'international city'. Without them, we would be so much the poorer in terms of skills, knowledge and understanding.
The private sector hires according to ability to get the job done. Some employment centres on communication skills, but this is not the case for all jobs. The Hong Kong Football Association's advertisement for a head coach in March raised questions because it stipulated that applicants needed to speak English, Cantonese and Putonghua. Soccer requires players, coaches and managers to be skilled at the game, not linguistics; when the absurdity was pointed out, the association quickly dropped the requirement.
Governing Hong Kong is not a game, but it requires the same mentality: having people qualified to get the work done properly. Our city's ethnic diversity means that civil servants need to know and understand the people they are serving. Getting top marks in an exam on written or spoken Chinese or English is not the only indicator of such an ability. Above all else, we need effective workers.
