Academics want a committee to oversee the teaching of information technology in schools, which they say is progressing too slowly.
A five-year strategy to make information technology a daily tool for every school child was ordered by Tung Chee-hwa in his policy address last year.
Its aim is to improve teaching in the classroom. A long-awaited consultation paper entitled 'Information Technology for Quality Education' is to be launched today by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Joseph Wong Wing-ping.
A number of academics, speaking at a seminar yesterday, said students had been starved of knowledge and that the matter must be dealt with immediately by a steering committee set up under the Education Commission.
Professor Cheng Kai-ming, Hong Kong University's pro-vice-chancellor, said: 'Students are keen to learn and use IT but officials repeatedly ask them to wait, not realising the great urgency of the matter,' he said.
Chairman of the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute Paul Yip Kwok-wah, a special adviser to Mr Tung, warned that students might learn to use Internet on their own and pick up 'bad information'.