ENG-2004 — Page 217

Education | 179

community service, physical and aesthetic development, and career-related experiences for lifelong learning and whole-person development of students.

In 2001, the CDC developed an open, coherent and flexible curriculum framework that enables students to meet the challenges of a knowledge-based society. The framework is composed of three interconnected components: Key Learning Areas2, Generic Skills3 and Values and Attitudes4. The Key Learning Areas serve as the major knowledge domain of subjects providing contexts for the development of generic skills and values and attitudes. By making use of the curriculum framework, schools are now offering their students a broad and balanced curriculum.

To cope with the challenges of the 21st century and the demands of the rapidly developing knowledge-based society, the Government endorsed EC's recommendation on reforming the academic structure for senior education and higher education to help develop the full potential of students. A three-month consultation was launched in October 2004 to collect public views on its design. blueprint, timetable for implementation and financial arrangement.

Information Technology in Education

Information technology (IT) in education prepares our students for the information age and to equip them to become lifelong learners. The first five-year strategy on IT in education was launched in 1998. By early 2004 each primary school had on average 91 computers while secondary school had 247. All schools now have broadband connection to the Internet.

Riding on the achievements of the first five-year strategy, a new student-centred IT in education strategy was launched in July 2004 to enhance community-wide support for a sustainable development of IT in education. The key goals of the next strategy are to empower learners and teachers with IT, to enhance e-leadership capacity in schools, to develop more digital resources for learning, to improve schools' IT infrastructure, to provide continuous research and development, and to promote community-wide support.

The Hong Kong Education City was launched in August 2000 to promote quality education and IT for lifelong and life-wide learning. It is now one of the most popular education portals in Hong Kong and will continue to strengthen its role as an agent for sourcing and disseminating digital education resources.

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Existing subjects are grouped into eight Key Learning Areas: Chinese Language Education, English Language Education, Mathematics Education, Science Education, Technology Education, Personal, Social & Humanities Education, Arts Education, and Physical Education.

Nine Generic Skills helping students to learn how to learn in the areas of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, information technology, numeracy, problem-solving, self-management, and study.

For example: national identity, responsibility, perseverance, respect for others, commitment, trust, and modesty.