How to Promote Social Mobility Overview and main findings

The Home and Youth Affair Bureau (HYAB) will be releasing its first blueprint for youth development1 at the end of 2022. YHK interviewed MWYO, an independent think tank in Hong Kong and discussed feasible possibilities of giving Hong Kong youth opportunities for social mobility.2

What new opportunities that might improve social mobility do young people most want and which among these are most feasible?

There are various dimensions when examining the issue of youth upward mobility, such as the quality and equity of education, accessibility to healthcare and work opportunities and wages. From a work perspective, many of the 61 Hong Kong youth interviewed in our report mentioned that a diversified development of the economic structure would be crucial to their upward mobility.

The youth with different talents and interests can thus reach their full potential and develop the career of their respective choices. However, despite the recent increasingly emphasis on emerging industries like innovation & technology and culture & creativity, our economy is still very much dependent on the traditional pillar industries. This has led to many youth employment issues, including limited career development pathways, excess supply of highly educated labour and inadequate supply of high-skilled jobs, as well as increasingly poor working opportunities with high academic qualifications and job mismatching.

Therefore, our report strongly recommends the government to formulate an emerging industries’ development strategy, whereby strategic industries with comparative advantage for Hong Kong could develop under a definite direction with adequate support and foster synergy.

More specifically, the main functions of this strategy include: • identifying the strategic industries vital to enhancing the competitiveness of Hong Kong and the national development goals; • examining the markets and needs of these industries; • fostering synergy among these industries

and outlining the direction, goals and development plans for each industry; and • devising specific measures and strategies to nurture talents.

Furthermore, the government should seize the opportunities within the development of the Greater Bay Area; the vision and positioning of Hong Kong offered in the National 14th Five-Year Plan to promote economic diversification, thereby constructing a healthy job market for young people and enhancing their upward mobility.

Can you tell us what was the response of the young people on the strengthening of mental health education with a regular review of the effectiveness of emotional and resilient education in schools’, also polled for their contribution of views?

Our report did not poll parents. Nevertheless, the 61 youth interviewed are looking forward to the policy recommendations of our study. Regarding mental health education in schools, the respondents indicated that a comprehensive emotional education was absent in schools’ curricula. Some schools adopt a problem-based approach to their emotional complications, instead of a preventative approach. Some even ignore the students’ needs and expect parents to tackle the issue themselves.

As a result, many students do not have sufficient mental health literacy to identify and handle their problems and / or seek professional advice. Despite helpful workshops on emotional education sporadically provided by NGOs, the number of beneficiaries is limited, owing to the lack of financial and human resources. Therefore, comprehensive emotional and resilience education in schools is much needed.

The youth interviewed also stressed that parents should play a pivotal role in their mental health, especially when schools were closed and unable to offer support during the pandemic. Unfortunately, many parents in Hong Kong have been encountering immense pressure due to the pandemic and depressing social sentiments since 2019. Their negative emotions often indirectly create adverse impacts on the mental health of their children.

Although the Education Bureau has provided relevant materials for parent education via channels such as www. mentalhealth.edb.gov.hk, all interviewees stated that their parents had no idea about the information made available by the Hong Kong government. Thus, a comprehensive parent education curriculum framework for secondary and primary schools is also necessary. It should include mental health components and a strategy to reach out to more parents.

How strong would you say on a 1-5 scale was the support was among your respondents for strengthening teaching resources for non-Chinese speaking students and professional training courses for improved teaching of Chinese as a Second Language Learning Framework? This is in relation to cultural inclusion as another action suggestion listed in your report (pages 7 to 9).

It would be on a scale of 4 out of 5. The ethnic minority students interviewed revealed that the current Chinese language education receiving in schools failed to address their needs because of their considerable learning differences. Some considered that the content was too simple, resulting in their inability to speak and write Chinese fluently. In fact, many ethnic minority students rely on their daily activities to learn Chinese, such as watching local movies and interacting with Chinese friends. Their Chinese proficiency would be much lower for those studying in schools which do not have Chinese-speaking students. However, all ethnic minority respondents agreed that Chinese proficiency was essential to their career development and integration into the Hong Kong community.

References:

1 https://mwyo.org/en/future_hk_details.php?id=139&page=1 2 https://mwyo.org/en/LSwXLX https://www.ydc.gov.hk/files/pressroom/public_engagement_report_en.pdf