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The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Stephen Lam, met with a group of youths from Hong Kong's ethnic minorities this afternoon (December 28).
Mr Lam discussed with the young people a range of issues, including their integration into the local community, their views on the education system and employment prospects. He emphasised that the Hong Kong SAR Government was committed to enabling members of the ethnic minority communities to integrate into Hong Kong society and to make a useful contribution in that regard.
"We enacted the Race Discrimination Ordinance in 2008 and established four ethnic minority service centres run by non-governmental organisations in 2009. The Ordinance provides protection against discriminatory practices. The service centres have been set up to provide a focal point for the ethnic minorities to organise activities for their communities, including language training classes for both parents and children. The Government has plans to extend these services.
"Furthermore, in order to enable members of the ethnic minorities to join the disciplinary services, the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) and the Correctional Services Department (CSD) have adjusted the language proficiency requirements for the recruitment of the respective grades. These adjustments are beginning to produce results.
"We welcome views put forth by the young people today. The relevant bureaux and departments will take these views into account in taking forward their work and services for the city's ethnic minorities," Mr Lam said.
The meeting was briefed by representatives of the Education Bureau (EDB), the HKPF and the CSD on the policy measures taken by the Government in promoting social inclusion.
Specifically, the EDB currently provides the following multi-pronged support services to ethnic minorities within the education system which include:
(a) At the school level ¡ª the issue of guidelines alongside teaching and learning materials to schools on adaption to the Chinese language curriculum to facilitate the learning of Chinese as a second language by non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students at different stages of development, and provision of additional funding and on-site professional assistance to schools with a concentration of NCS students to further develop school-based support measures;
(b) At the student level ¡ª provision of after-school extended Chinese learning programmes for NCS students and consideration of alternative Chinese language qualifications, including the General Certificate of Secondary Education in various public examinations and other study pursuits; and
(c) At the parent level ¡ª provision of information packages in various ethnic minority languages introducing the local education system, dedicated briefings and hotline services for NCS parents.
With more NCS students enrolling in local schools, the EDB has been examining the support measures. It will consider how to enlarge the school network to further support NCS students and step up NCS children's early adaptation to the local education system starting from the kindergarten stage.
As regards the recruitment of personnel for the disciplinary forces, adjustments have been made to the selection process, taking into account the specific duties of the grades concerned. Recent developments include:
(a) In May 2011, the HKPF introduced the "Practical Incident Handling Test", in which a recount of observations in simple written English and Chinese replaces the original Chinese written response in assessing Police Constable candidates' communication ability. Additional marks are also given to candidates with foreign language abilities (e.g. Pakistani, Urdu).
(b) In September 2010, the HKPF launched a pilot scheme in employing Police Community Liaison Assistants who are conversant with Hong Kong's ethnic minority dialects.
(c) In December 2010, the CSD ceased the original written test comprising the writing of one English and one Chinese essay for certain appointment schemes. Candidates are now allowed to select English or Chinese for the required impromptu talk. Additionally, the written test for the recruitment of Assistant Officers II was replaced by group interview in September 2011.
It is expected that these adjustments will enable members of the ethnic minorities to join the two disciplinary services.
Prior to the meeting, Mr Lam took a tour with the participants in Tamar Park to introduce them to the new Government Headquarters and its vicinity.
Ends/Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Issued at HKT 20:06
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