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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Education and Training for Industry
I have been prompted to speak on this subject, of which I have some personal knowledge and experience of, by questions asked in recent Council Meetings on the provision of facilities for secondary and vocational training in resettlement areas, and also by a recently released Government-sponsored report on high-level manpower in our manufacturing industries.
We have heard the story of the phenomenal development of Hong Kong manufacturing industry so often that we tend to take it for granted. We also tend to take for granted the fact that industry has been able to overcome the difficulties which have beset it in the past and in overcoming these difficulties, to rise to new heights. So the temptation is to sit back and make ourselves believe that industry will always be able to look after itself. Even our learned colleague, Mr. Solomon RAFEEK told us a few minutes ago in his opening paragraph.
Unfortunately this is a false sense of security. We have now come to an obstacle to further development which industry alone will not be able to surmount, and unless it is able to hurdle this barrier, our rate of growth will be slowed down if not brought to a standstill. I refer to our need for trained people at all levels. This again is not a new theme, we have heard it often and I'm very much afraid that, as we do with industry, we tend to take it for granted and expect that things will work themselves out. Well, just wishing, won't work this one out.
In the early years of our industrial development, we moved, as was to be expected, into the industries which required relatively simple skills. Training could be done on the job and in most cases the necessary skill could be picked up in a matter of weeks or months. It is to the everlasting credit of those who pioneered Hong Kong's industrial development under trying conditions, both industrialists and craftsmen alike, the ones who started the first spinning mill, built locally the first knitting machine, the power press, the plastic moulding machine, and assembled the first transistor radio,--that they set the example and launch the industries from which has developed, in the span of less than two decades one of the main centres of modern industry in Asia. Hong Kong's example is being emulated in other less developed territories and, with lower wages and a number of financial and economic aids which Hong Kong manufacturers do not enjoy, their ability to produce and to sell at lower prices than our own, is beginning to force us, whether we like it or not, to move into industries which require greater investment in modern plant and higher skills. Unless this is done, not only will Hong Kong's economy come to a standstill but since there is no other area of activity in which our young people can be employed in anything like the same numbers, we shall have social problems of a dimension which are fearful to contemplate.
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Manufacturers are playing their part in this community requirement by laying down or ploughing back huge sums of money in building high-rise factories on expensive land and in buying new machinery and equipment for advanced manufacturing or new types of industries. They are also often forced to bring in from overseas, at great expense, engineers or technologists or pay handsome royalties for manufacturing licences. Yet what of the technicians and the craftsmen! Whose responsibility is it to train them? Government has acknowledged a responsibility for providing technical education and therefore the technicians and technologists, but has stated that it is industry's responsibility to look after its own needs for craftsmen. On the first count—the technician and technologist level—Government lags very much behind in meeting its responsibilities, and on the second count—the craftsmen level—I am of the opinion that Government would be wrong to adopt a laissez-faire attitude, instead of one for active participation and sponsorship.
According to recent surveys and analysis of our present industrial employment pattern, the overall proportion of technicians/skilled workers/operatives is 1/24/13. Since there are approximately 500,000 factory workers registered with the Labour Department, and according to census statistics about 50% more are engaged in the building trades and other non-registered industrial employment, the total number of persons engaged in industry is approximately 750,000. On these figures, and even if the ratio of technicians and craftsmen to operatives does not change (and change it must if we are to move into the higher technology industries), there should be today 45,000 technicians and 112,500 skilled workers. Allowing 24% loss each year for retirement, etc. and adding 6% for overall expansion of industrial employment, we need to train at least 3,820 technicians and 9,750 craftsmen each year from this year onwards. Are these targets being met? Firstly, is Government producing 3,820 technicians each year for industry? I regret to say it is not. The very crowded Hong Kong Technical College, which is the only institution producing in any significant manner this level of training, has an annual output of only about half of these requirements. I am well aware that when the new Technical Institute at Morrison Hill is operating, the number of technicians the Technical College can train each year will increase, but not nearly at the pace needed to meet the requirements of industry.
(Mr. H. CHEONG-LEEN arrived at this point).
At the craft level, Government has some sort of a fixation about not getting involved in the training of craftsmen for industry. As an industrialist, I'm all for non-interference by Government in the operation of my factory. I'm sure all industrialists feel likewise. But industry...
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