On Second Thought: Work together to make Hong Kong a smart and caring city
In his latest policy address, chief executive Leung Chun-ying advocated building a smart city by providing funding for innovation and technology; developing gifted children; extending Wi-Fi coverage; and making use of big data for policy formulation.
These are important developments, as we want to enhance competitiveness. As we are experiencing an ageing population, the productivity of our workforce needs to be increased at least by 3% annually to offset the anticipated reduction in the number of workers from 2018. We need to improve our system and governance to make them more efficient and reduce wastage.
Social and public policies need to be more focused and evidence based to improve return on investment. Also, the smart city would not work if there were not enough supply of smart people.
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Investing in education and skills, especially among young people, is not an option but a must to ensure our competitiveness and maintain sustainable growth. Our young people’s opportunities might have been widened due to the One Belt, One Road initiative. At the same time, they need to be smart enough to seize the opportunities.
Every year, there are 7 million university graduates from mainland China. We need to equip our young people well to compete locally and internationally.
Developing our gifted children is important, but at the same time there are another 82% of high school leavers who cannot receive the subsidy from the government to continue their tertiary education. Can we provide more support for those who are qualified but can’t secure a funded place?
Funding for kindergarten can be a relief for families with children as it will reduce their burden, especially for those in the low-income group. Financial consideration has always been shown to be one of the major barriers to having more children in Hong Kong. However, there should be a monitoring mechanism to make sure the operators to use the government subsidy in the right way such that the quality of kindergarten education is improved and the burden of parents can be reduced.
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We should also be working to look after the poor, sick, disadvantage and marginalised. Ad hoc measures in mitigating the poverty situation are needed, but long-term and practical methods should be developed to increase their chances in life.
The surplus in the government should be invested in our human capital. As chief secretary Carrie Lam has said, we all need to be more empathetic to each other to build a stronger and better community. There are many in our workforce who are working hard and long and earning little for Hong Kong’s development.
By innovating our economy and sharing prosperity with one another, we all can contribute and make Hong Kong a better society. I think good governance can still be achieved if we have the right people to do the right thing at the right time with a right mind.
It is no gain to anyone if we are concerned only with our own interest. We can be proud of ourselves if Hong Kong can be turned into a smart and caring society. We can then be a role model for mainland development. We all need to work smarter to achieve the goal.
Paul Yip Siu-fai is professor of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong
