Plan to improve adaptability of workforce

A NEW strategic plan aimed at better meeting the territory's need for an adaptable workforce with professional skills will be prepared in the coming months by the City University of Hong Kong, the institute's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Cheng Yiu-chung, said.

Professor Cheng was speaking at the institute's Ninth Academic Awards Ceremony, held last week.

He said higher education in Hong Kong had undergone a period of rapid expansion since the 1980s and that wider access to such education and the corresponding increased public spending on it had created rising expectations about the relevance and practicability of the curricula involved.

'However, knowledge and skills become obsolete at an amazing pace nowadays, especially in Hong Kong as we are facing major political, economic and social changes in the run-up to 1997 and beyond. So the greatest value in university education is to impart to the students the ability to anticipate and to adapt to changes, so that they can solve problems and make further improvement on their own,' he said.

He said to produce students with vision and initiative, as well as an international outlook, the university attached special importance to general education and training in language and communication skills.

Despite upgrading the status of the institution from polytechnic to university last month, Professor Cheng said the former polytechnic had no intention of giving up its traditions and characteristics, which emphasised applied and professional work to serve the practical needs of the community . . . 'an identity that we should maintain'.