Hong Kong Strives To Provide Young People With Better Opportunities: Official

Umer Jamshaid Published September 19, 2017 | 06:05 PM

Hong Kong's Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said on Tuesday that the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) will continue to invest in education

HONG KONG, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Sep, 2017 ) : Hong Kong's Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said on Tuesday that the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) will continue to invest in education and join hands with the higher education sector to provide the younger generation with more and better opportunities.

Speaking at the launch ceremony of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the re-establishment of Lingnan University in Hong Kong, Cheung said that education is one of the top policy priorities of the SAR government.

It takes the lion's share of the government recurrent expenditure, accounting for 21 percent of the total in the current financial year, which illustrates the SAR government's commitment to education in Hong Kong, he added.

Cheung said that he was pleased to note that Lingnan University has developed a strategic plan for 2016-2022 to steer their students to the next level of excellence. Among the various areas identified for strategic development, the university is determined to promote regional and international co-operation to strengthen the research culture and training as well as internationalisation of student learning.

This strategy aligns well with the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area initiatives, he said. "Hong Kong has a key role to play in these very important initiatives and we should help our young talent grasp the new opportunities." Cheung also mentioned that the extraordinary story of Lingnan was among the many tales in Hong Kong which exemplified the unique relationship between Hong Kong and the motherland.

In 1888, the university's forerunner, the Christian College in China, was founded in Guangzhou. Seventy-nine years later, in 1967, the institution was re-established in Hong Kong as Lingnan College.

It was granted self-accreditation status and full recognition as a university by the government in 1998 and renamed Lingnan University in 1999. As the only publicly funded liberal arts university in Hong Kong, Cheung said, Lingnan is a shining and outstanding example of the virtues of liberal arts in education.