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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ·
- 11 May 1988
1997 in view, such as, the proposal to strengthen social and political awareness, and to encourage political participation but also those made on account of other factors, such as, the maintenance of mental health. Sir, I am confident that putting the 1997 factor in its due place, no more no less, would enable us to form a youth policy that would truly meet the needs and aspirations of our youth.
Today, more than 10 Members, who have the interests of young people at heart, will be speaking on the report. I would like to thank them for their concern and I hope that more in our community will voice their views, also criticisms, so that we will have an ideal youth policy.
Sir, with these remarks, I support the motion.
Question proposed.
MR. CHEONG: Sir, the future of Hong Kong has been uppermost in our minds ever since the start of the Sino-British negotiations. Many important and at times heated debates in connection with our future have taken place in this Chamber over the past few years. Yet, looking back and pondering over what has transpired, somehow I cannot help but having a nagging feeling that we might have fallen into the trap of concentrating too much on just one factor, namely, the development and evolution of our future political system. Have we not run the risk of losing sight of the importance of other factors that are of equal significance to our future?
Many parents would say that they are living not only for themselves but more importantly for their children. Have we not repeatedly heard that it is only for their children that they are taking the plunge to emigrate? Should we not accept that the future of Hong Kong will be very much the future of our youth? Hence, this debate on youth policy is indeed timely. For me at least, it helps to refocus my mind on an issue that has a crucial bearing on the future of Hong Kong. In short, if our youth are not adequately prepared to meet future challenges we, or they, will not have a future.
What then are the challenges? How do we identify them? Having identified them, how should Government allocate resources into establishing programmes designed to help our youth to meet those challenges successfully? What is Government doing now and what improvements are needed? Sir, these are but only a few questions for which answers must be found. There are certainly more and hopefully this debate will help bring our community to focus on this issue.
Sir, through the hard work of our community, coupled with some luck, Hong Kong has become increasingly affluent. Our children now have a much cosier environment in which to grow up in. At home, they are generally more pampered than their forefathers. At school, they are enjoying the fruit of our education system which, rightly or wrongly, works on the assumption that the less competitive pressure on our children the better. Furthermore, advancement in mass media technology has presented our children with more distractions from their learning processes.