Technical education and industrial training in Hong Kong

Abstract

1. Introduction -- 1.1 The story of Hong Kong is well-known. Its change from being a small barren island, totally devoid of natural resources, to being first an entrepot and then a robust manufacturing, financial and trading centre, despite numerous political, social and economic upheavals, is well documented. What is not so well-known, however, is the efforts made by Hong Kong in developing a system of technical education and industrial training that has helped to make some of these changes possible, a system that is designed to meet the specific needs of the economy and seeks to match output of trained personnel with the economy's requirements. People were, and still are, Hong Kong's only natural resources. It was this abundance of people that provided the impetus needed to bring into existence a system of human resources development that has helped to transform what would otherwise have been a heavy economic burden into a highly productive workforce. -- 1.2 This paper attempts to give a brief account of the development in technical education 'and industrial training in Hong Kong in the last three decades.