AI education and talent development for the new era
Authors: Victor Kwok, Head of Education & Youth Team and Richard Lau, Assistant Researcher at Our Hong Kong Foundation
The rapid advancement of Artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years has led many industries to adopt AI technologies, such as Facial Recognition and Data Mining, and implement employee retraining schemes to improve production and work efficiency. According to the recent forecasts of the World Economic Forum, 50% of jobs in the world will be replaced by machines and automation technology by 2025. These include not only low-skilled jobs but also professional occupations such as accounting, financial analysis, and business services.
In the digital age, nurturing talent is crucial. Governments of different countries, such as the United States, China and Singapore have already begun to implement AI education strategies. Such strategies cover the introduction of relevant courses at primary and secondary education levels, and the provision of on-the-job training in technology for in-service practitioners. However, are current education strategies implemented in Hong Kong sufficient enough to meet the local demand for AI talents, so as to enhance the competitiveness of industries?
The development progress of Technology education at primary and secondary schools remains sluggish
Since 2015, the Education Bureau has invested a lot of resources to support the development of STEM and coding education at primary and secondary school levels, helping students develop interest and knowledge in these subject areas from a young age. In recent months, the Hong Kong Education City has also announced the implementation of the "Go AI Scheme", which provides free teacher training and a total of 32 to 40 hours of AI courses for primary and secondary school students. The first phase of the scheme is expected to benefit approximately 10 to 20 schools.
However, up to now, Hong Kong students’ information and communication technology (ICT) skills are still lacking, and their interest in the related subjects is also relatively low. According to the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the ICT skills of Hong Kong students lags behind the international average, and is relatively inferior to students of developed countries/cities such as Singapore, Finland, and Macau. The percentage of Hong Kong students who expect to work in ICT-related occupations when they are 30 is also lower than the OECD average. In fact, these problems may have been caused by the curriculum arrangements in primary and secondary schools. Given that Mathematics is a compulsory subject in Hong Kong's 12-year school education, while Science and ICT are elective subjects in the upper secondary school level, this implies why the number of students enrolled in relevant HKDSE and university subjects has been declining over the years. Programming and AI are closely connected, but only primary and junior secondary school students are currently required to take courses related to programming. Furthermore, since STEM education is not an independent subject, the Government has not provided clear guidelines on integrating STEM into the already intensive curricula, resulting in different modes and pace of teaching AI theory, programming, and other related concepts across schools.
On the contrary, the U.S. government started requiring schools to provide STEM courses for students from kindergarten to upper secondary (K-12 students) since 2011, and recently began developing national guidelines for teaching K-12 students about AI. In 2018, China’s Ministry of Education announced that AI-related disciplines would be listed as compulsory subjects in senior secondary schools across the country. The ministry also started introducing AI courses at the primary school level. To help students build a solid knowledge foundation in ICT from a young age, and nurture future AI talents, the Education Bureau must ensure a smoother transition between the primary and secondary technology education curriculum.
Low continuing education participation hinders enhancement of workforce competitiveness
Moreover, with the advancement in technology, the Government must strengthen the promotion of continuing professional education in Hong Kong. As local construction, logistics and other sectors are undergoing industrial upgrading and transformation, the government needs to help affected industries and employees to acquire AI and other cutting-edge digital skills, so as not to lose their competitiveness. Over the past 20 years, the Government has implemented various continuing education policies, such as the establishment of the Continuing Education Fund (CEF), and the launch of the Reindustrialisation and Technology Training Programme to subsidise local companies to provide IT training to their employees, spanning areas from AI to Big Data. However, according to a survey conducted by the Census and Statistics Department in 2018, only 20.4% of employed persons had participated in job-related training/retraining courses arranged by employers and/or on their own initiative during the 12 months before enumeration, falling behind Singapore, the Netherlands and other countries.
In response to the weak lifelong learning culture in Hong Kong, the Government needs to review the relevant strategies. For example, some people criticised that the current scope of CEF courses is too narrow and outdated, making them unable to find a suitable course. The reason for this is because the department responsible for implementing the scheme rarely reviews and updates course selections according to the changing workforce skill needs. The Government should draw reference from other countries’ experiences. For instance, Singapore’s "SkillsFuture" programme regularly subsidises citizens to enroll in courses and master the most up-to-date skills in the workforce. The programme provides nearly 30,000 courses, most of which fall in the field of ICT. In recent years, the Singapore government has also implemented AI talent development initiatives, such as offering free training courses of various forms and levels of difficulty to people of different occupational backgrounds. In this regard, the Government must keep pace with the newest industry and job developments, as well as skill demands in Hong Kong, and launch more targeted upskilling and reskilling programmes, especially advanced technology training courses.
Talent development is the key to the growth of the AI industry. To meet the challenges of the digital era, it is imperative that our education system keeps pace with the times and be responsive to the needs of learners. The Government should establish a through-train AI or IT education and training programmes to nurture future digital talents, spanning from the primary, secondary and higher education level, to the workplace. This will help upgrade local industries and promote economic diversification, therefore creating new jobs and more upward mobility opportunities.