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Assessment of academic qualifications of civil service recruits
Following is a question by the Hon James Tien Pei-chun and a written reply by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Michael Sze, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
The Secretary for the Civil Service has pointed out that reference to British and Commonwealth qualifications will not be mentioned in civil service recruitments in the future, and that a committee will be established to discuss the assessment of academic qualifications. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council of:
Reply:
(a)
(b)
Mr President.
the estimated number of persons holding non-British and Commonwealth university degrees who will benefit every year as a result of this change; and
the criteria which the Government will adopt to assess the acceptability of degree programmes of non-British and Commonwealth universities for recruitment purposes; and how the applications of individual candidates will be appraised?
My reply to the two questions are as follows:
(a)
it is not possible to give any meaningful estimate of the number likely to benefit from our plans to widen recognition of degrees obtained from tertiary institutions in non-English speaking countries. I do not expect the number to be large, at least in the foreseeable future. We are after all talking about Hong Kong students. Given our substantial and steadily expanding tertiary sector most choose to study here. By comparison, the number who have obtained qualifications or are currently studying abroad is small, and mostly relate to North America, Britain and other English-speaking countries. Very few have chosen to go to universities in non-English speaking countries. With the impending change in sovereignty and rising standards of tertiary education in the region we can expect the number to grow. It is for this reason that we plan to strengthen the vetting of non-Hong Kong qualifications.