TNAG-0177-FCO40-213-Proposed-Polytechnic-1969 — Page 121

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FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW January 30, 1969

HONGKONG AFFAIRS

Talent Quest

JONGKONG has managed to de-

velop a successful and increasingly sophisticated range of industries with only a minimum of qualified technolo gists and technicians. It would be tempting to assume that the Colony can continue to get by without making any determined effort to raise the academic qualifications of its supervisory and man- agerial staff in industry. The Govern- ment clearly believes that professional training programmes deserve only a limited priority in the educational plans of the Colony. This attitude is based on a misunderstanding of the history of development in Hongkong. After the war, the Colony cajoyed an artificial in- jection of skills from the Shanghai tex- tile industry. Subsequently, it was able to supply the necessary skills to main- tain the pace of growth as small factories

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were able to develop the talents of their 'staff as the undertakings grew in size over the years.

This pattern is unlikely to prevail in the future. The pace of development is now much more rapid, products are tech nically more sophisticated, while com- petition in overseas markets has intensifi- ed.

The opportunities for workers to convert themselves, into trained tech- nicians, through on-the-job experience rather than formal training are becoming much more difficult. The responsibility for providing a flow of skilled managerial and supervisory staff with the educational backgrounds required to keep the economy in the forefront of modern in- dustrial production must fall squarely on the shoulders of the two universities and on the Education Department's technical training institutions... ¿-

At the moment, the picture of technical education is, both confused and alarming,

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as the following article underlines. The pioneering efforts of the University Grants Committee to focus attention on the community's demands for graduates in various fields has met with a 'dis- couraging response from the Govern- ment. The efforts of both the Education and the Labour Departments to meet the requirements of industry for training courses have shown an inability to grasp the vital role which technical and tech- nological education; must play in any modern manufacturing economy., This unimaginative approach on the part of the Government will not prevent manu- facturers from continuing to develop their existing product lines; it does how- ever contain the threat that, in the future, Hongkong will be permanently relegated to producing those goods which can be manufactured by a work force which is only semi-skilled even at the top of the managerial tree.

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TECHNOLOGY: Technology in Hongkong industry has come to stay but, reports James Forsyth, the supply of industrial manpower: does not meet the demand, even at elementary skilled and semi-skilled' operative levels:

There's None So Blind

By James Forsyth

A SEVERE shortage of industrial engineers dissuaded the

director of Heuristic Concepts Incorporated from setting

up a plant for the manufacture of computer parts in Hong- kong. "I will have a look at Japan and Taiwan instead," he said. All too often the lack of technical expertise is the reason for non-investment given to the Commerce and Industry Department by overseas businessmen as they leave to look elsewhere.

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RECEIVERA INTE ARCHIVES N6.31

11 FEB 1969

HKK9/3

tool and

Shortages of particular industriarbrendarükkay die-making, detract badly from the attraction of Hongkong as a centre for the production of new and sophisticated pro- ducts. The Technical College has been without a tool and die instructor since 1965, and the resulting scarcity of tool and die workers, the élite of industrial craftsman, has pushed their pay up as high as $2,000 a month. Such a desperate lack of key production skills is hardly likely to inspire