Speech at the Opening Ceremony for Company Programme 2006/07 Trade Fair Junior Achievement Hong Kong

Opening Address by Mr Raymond H C Wong, JP

Permanent Secretary for Education and Manpower

at the Opening Ceremony for

 Company Programme 2006/07 Trade Fair

Junior Achievement Hong Kong

                    on Saturday, 16 December 2006               

Mr Cheng, Ms Vivian Lau, Distinguished Guests and Fellow Students,   

It is my great pleasure to be invited to officiate at the opening ceremony of the Company Programme 2006/07 Trade Fair.  I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Junior Achievement Hong Kong, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited and all volunteer business advisors from various sectors and professions for bringing such an exciting and meaningful event into existence. 

                     This is the 4^th round of the Company Programme with participation of more than 1 600 students from 75 schools.  The Programme is designed to help young students better appreciate and unleash the role of business in our society.  It provides an invaluable learning opportunity for our students.  Through participation in the Programme, students are able to develop their skills in leadership, communication, teamwork and problem-solving.  They also have the opportunity to gain hands-on entrepreneurial experience with the benefit of guidance of volunteer business advisors.  Such experience is extremely valuable to the participating students and serves as part of their whole-person development.  

                     The objectives of the Programme also echo those of our senior secondary curriculum under the New Academic Structure to be introduced in 2009, in particular the component of Other Learning Experiences.  We firmly believe that learning should also take place outside classroom and that through the various life-wide learning experiences, our students can develop generic skills to a fuller extent and be inspired to pursue their dreams along their career paths.

                     Education is fully related to the development of a society, and well deserves the participation and the efforts of all stakeholders.  We need your collaboration to actualize the vision of the Education Reform by giving our students the opportunity to exhibit their abilities in independent thinking and creativity, and thus raise the overall quality of our students.

                     I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to various sectors of our community for their support by participating in various forms of business-school partnership schemes or programmes to offer wider learning opportunities to our younger generation.

Finally, I wish the Company Programme every success and all of you a most fruitful return from this programme.  At this festive season of the year, may I also wish everyone here a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

                    Thank you.