Mrs. Lai, staff and students of Heep Yunn, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The foundation stone of Heep Yunn School was laid in 1936. This year, therefore, Heep Yunn is celebrating its 60th anniversary. I am honoured and pleased to be invited to attend this Speech Day and address you.

I have read with great interest the Headmistress' Report in your publication, 'Vintage', and I am extremely pleased and impressed, not only by the outstanding academic examination results, but by the emphasis and achievements made by Heep Yunn on the other aspects of education, sports, music, and on serving our community and developing students with a correct and balanced perspective in life.

What Heep Yunn is doing is very much in line with the traditional Chinese education belief of a whole-man, or more appropriately for this forum, whole-woman education: moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetic developments (); or in line with the principles of education described in the Education Commission Report Number 7. The principles are:-

• to provide students with an all-round education and a full school life;

• to develop fully students of different abilities in the spirit of equal opportunities;

• to equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help them to meet the challenges of life and to instill in them a desire for continuous improvement and self-learning;

• to impart confidence and social skills to students to help them communicate effectively in community life; and

• to prepare students to become responsible citizens and maintain high moral standards.

I support the above beliefs and principles whole-heartedly and I congratulate Heep Yunn for achieving the good results.

With less than 220 days to the resumption of sovereignty by China over Hong Kong, and with the world getting more and more global, it is important that the education sectors in Hong Kong review what we should do to prepare our young people to meet the coming challenges and opportunities.

There are a few areas that I would like to discuss with you and for all of us to think about.

Firstly, we will be part of China. We are Chinese, and after July 1 next year there should not be any doubt in people's mind who we are. But what does it mean to be Chinese? To borrow the words of Mr. C.H. Tung, one of the contenders for the Chief Executive position, "there is a need for us to renew our commitment to the values we hold dear:..... Trust, love and respect for our family and our elders; integrity, honesty and loyalty towards all; commitment to education and a strong desire to strive to improve and advance oneself; a belief in order and stability; a preference for consultation rather than open confrontation. These are some of the shared values which will make our society more cohesive. Together with a strong identity, they will provide us with clarity of direction and unity of purpose."

Secondly, though we will be part of China, Hong Kong is unique; otherwise there is no need to provide for the One Country Two Systems. Our uniqueness is in our role as the bridge between China and the West, and the place where Eastern and Western ideas meet and synthesize. This uniqueness has made Hong Kong successful. However, in order to ensure that this uniqueness can be preserved, Hong Kong people, particularly our young people must be able to do a number of things:

As a start, they should have a high proficiency in both Chinese and English languages. More precisely, they should be biliterate (Chinese and English) and trilingual (Cantonese, Putonghua and English). The growth in the Chinese economy is requiring that we all can correspond in Chinese. Even in banking, fifteen years ago rarely did we have to correspond in Chinese. Now a significant amount of correspondences that come through my desk is in Chinese. Fifteen years ago unless I called our business friends in Taiwan there was no need to speak in Mandarin. Now, speaking Mandarin or Putonghua is a daily event. However, the rise in the use of Chinese does not diminish the need for Hong Kong people to be proficient in English. Afterall, English is the international language for business and sciences. Unless we are proficient in both Chinese and English, how can we act as the bridge between China and the West? As the Chairman of the University Grants Committee, I support the government's call that universities in Hong Kong should not accept students that do not attain the minimum requirements in English. As an employer, let me be more direct, you will not be hired unless you are proficient in Chinese, and more importantly English.

Besides language, Hong Kong is unique because of our understanding of Western culture. Some of the traits are creativity, aggressiveness, directness and pragmatism. It is important that this understanding will continue.

Thirdly, to preserve our uniqueness and competitiveness, we must ensure that the fundamentals that have made Hong Kong successful will remain in place. These fundamentals are clearly identified in the gift that our Financial Secretary presented to the President of China. They are:-

• the rule of law;
• level-playing field;
• clean and open government; and
• free flow of information.
• I hope you will remember these points and appreciate their importance to Hong Kong.

Fourthly, to maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness, we must increase the availability of talents. Hong Kong's economic role can be summarized as the Manhattan of Asia, we are the financial centre, transportation centre, commercial centre, regional headquarter, communication centre, shopping centre and entertainment centre of Asia. As Asia grows, there will be increased economic activities in Hong Kong. The economic growth in China, in particular, presents opportunities for our graduates in Hong Kong. More and more of our graduates will be working in China as manager, supervisors, engineers and technicians.

However, the graduates in China will be competing with our students as well. Their university education is much more elitists than ours. Their intellectual abilities are high, they are hungry and they are cheaper. This is a major challenge for our students, a major challenge for you.

To make sure that Hong Kong will keep its competitive edge, instead of protecting our students from competition, we should attract more talents to come to Hong Kong while simultaneously providing more opportunities to educate and upgrade our own people. On the latter point, Hong Kong is now providing first degree places to 18% of the young people at the relevant age group, compared to 9% five years ago. We have increased the postgraduates places. Also, Hong Kong has a thriving continuing and professional education. As our economy continues to restructure, and new knowledge grows, it is important for our workforce to upgrade itself. We would like to see further developments in continuing and professional education. This applies to our teachers as well. They should attend development courses continually. Maybe there should be requirements of periodic re-certification of teachers.

To attract more talent to Hong Kong, the University Grants Committee is recommending to the government that the universities be allowed to recruit up to 4% of undergraduates and taught postgraduates from outside Hong Kong. Currently there are less than one percent of non-local students. The UGC is also recommending that for research postgraduate places non-local students be increased from the current 20% to 33%. With increased quotas, and hopefully assisted financially by scholarships, we hope to attract some of the best and brightest students from our neighbouring countries to augment our talent pool in Hong Kong.

Another phenomenon that I personally would like to see happening is to attract more scholars and scientists to Hong Kong. I keep thinking about the experience in Taiwan in the 70s and 80s. During those years Taiwan attracted a lot of the Taiwanese scientists in North America to return home. The high-tech industry in Taiwan, which is very successful now, was started this way. Today in North America there is a lot of scientists and scholars that are from the mainland of China. Because of reduction in research funding, distance from home, difference in culture and the possible glass-ceiling that blocks career advancement, many of them are not happy living in America. If we can attract many of them to come to Hong Kong, they may be able to help us develop some high-tech industries. I would encourage the government, the universities and the private sector to pursue this initiative aggressively.

Some of these issues are contained in the Report on Higher Education that the UGC has made public yesterday. While many of these points may sound like challenges to some of you, one should not overlook the fact that the future for Hong Kong is a very optimistic one. I am a strong believer that China will continue to do well. They will do well because they are determined to modernize their economy by moving towards market economy. If China does well, so will the rest of Asia. Hong Kong being the Manhattan of Asia will certainly prosper. There will be many opportunities for all of us. The key is that we are prepared for them, and education is the most important aspect in preparing our young people to meet the challenges and capture the opportunities that lie ahead.

Working together, I am confident that we will build a better Hong Kong in the 21st century. I am pleased to see that Heep Yunn is contributing nicely to this endeavour.

Once again, I would like to express my gratitude to the Headmistress, Mrs. Lai and to the staff and students of Heep Yunn for inviting me to speak on this occasion.

Thank you.