Working professionals have long been seeking out university courses to further their industry knowledge and update their skills. And certain institutional bodies are making it easier for these individuals by offering programmes that can help advance their careers.
Some institutions offer courses as a way to keep professionals qualified to practice in their field. The Law Society of Hong Kong has been aiding its practitioners to follow the mandatory Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Scheme since 1998.
'The legal profession is self-regulatory and the society is obliged to ensure the establishment and promotion of high standards of work within the profession,' said Heidi Chu Kit-ping, deputy secretary general of the Law Society. 'The CPD scheme provides a convenient framework for the profession to meet the changing demands of society and their clients.'
The scheme requires all trainee and practising solicitors to obtain a certain number of CPD points per year, and is designed to be as flexible as possible. Practitioners may obtain their points through legal research, long-distance learning courses, the writing of legal articles and books, or attendance at traditional lecture-based courses. The Law Society and other approved providers offer more than 3,000 of these CPD courses every year, with topics ranging from essential issues on trust planning to juvenile court practice.
The scheme does not only apply to the law profession, and members of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) must also submit to the mandatory requirements in order to keep their membership and practising certificate valid.
HKICPA offered 350 CPD courses last year, attracting more than 35,000 enrollments. The proposed programmes for this year include everything from ethics courses to Putonghua-language classes held jointly with the Hong Kong Putonghua Vocational School. Clement Chan, chairman of the scheme's committee at HKICPA, said that technical accounting skills aside, it was also important for members to develop their communication skills, language proficiency, and leadership and management skills.
These part-time programmes can include evening seminars that last a few hours each, half-day or full-day workshops, or even large-scale annual update conferences that cater for more than 1,000 participants. One large-scale event planned for this year is the China series forum, which consists of four half-day sessions.
