I echo the call by the Hong Kong Computer Society for the government to provide new policy support to create a viable online education sector in the territory ('Call to create e-learning hub', January 27).
The government has a crucial role to play in:
Promoting the culture of e-learning to citizens by making all government functions accessible online;
Co-ordinating and centralising electronic learning resources, rather than, for example, merging universities. A lot of taxpayers' money can be saved by merging electronic libraries of the local universities and building a centralised electronic library for all schools;
Fostering good practices of e-teaching and e-learning by, for instance, setting up exemplary e-learning platforms like the United Kingdom's eUniversities, which is backed by the UK government;
Enacting relevant copyright laws to protect the owners' rights of online learning materials; and
Assisting the development and sharing of content created by schools and universities.