As many as 60 per cent of young people believe they will be outperformed by their counterparts on the mainland in the next 10 to 20 years, a survey released yesterday found.
And slightly fewer than 40 per cent believe the city's university students are good enough to help sustain its status as a world city.
The gloomy picture was unveiled in a survey commissioned by Roundtable Community, a think-tank that a group of young professionals formed. The survey, conducted between mid-April and mid-May, interviewed 2,022 undergraduate students in Hong Kong, of whom 1,690 were born in the city and 332 were mainlanders furthering their studies here.
About 44 per cent of Hong Kong students thought their competitiveness would weaken in the next 10 years, while 30.5 per cent did not expect any improvement.
Researcher Leo Sham Ka-fai, of Powersoft Consultancy, said local students seemed to lack the initiative to learn, and their language proficiency and problem-solving abilities were also relatively weaker than their mainlander peers.
'Many know their weaknesses but do not seem to be doing anything,' he said, citing findings that about half had no plan to further studies because they had no time.
