The Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, today (August 25) officiated at the Award Presentation Ceremony 2023 of the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme (HKSES). Seventy students were selected as the ninth cohort of awardees.
Speaking at the ceremony, Dr Choi said that young people are the future, hope and pillars of Hong Kong, as well as the engine for propelling the long-term development of society and the economy. The vision is to inspire young people's potential through education, and to nurture them into quality citizens with a sense of social responsibility and national identity, an affection for Hong Kong as well as an international perspective.
She encouraged awardees to act as ambassadors in telling good Hong Kong stories while overseas, and make the best use of their enriched knowledge and skills upon graduation in contributing to Hong Kong and supporting Hong Kong's integration into the overall development of the country.
All awardees received their formal secondary school education in Hong Kong, studying either local or non-local curricula. Among them, 57 will be pursuing undergraduate studies and 13 will be pursuing postgraduate studies at world-renowned universities. These include not only top-notch comprehensive universities but also world-class institutions specialising in particular disciplines.
The awardees will pursue a wide spectrum of disciplines, with almost half of them pursuing programmes related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Other disciplines include law, arts, culture and performing arts, medical and health sciences, and social sciences. The distribution of the awardees by different disciplines is shown in the Annex.
A total of 723 applicants competed for this year's HKSES. Apart from outstanding academic achievements, the awardees also demonstrated excellence in their leadership qualities.
As the selection process is ongoing, some more applicants may be offered the scholarship after today's ceremony. A list of the awardees as of today has been uploaded to the HKSES website (hkses.edb.gov.hk).
First launched in November 2014, the HKSES has been regularised from the 2019/20 academic year onwards. It aims to support local students to pursue studies at world-renowned universities outside Hong Kong with a view to grooming a top cadre of talent with global vision, an international network and world-class education, thereby contributing to enhancing Hong Kong's competitiveness as Asia's world city in a globalised knowledge economy. Since its introduction, the HKSES has benefited 840 students. The key features of the scholarship scheme are available at the HKSES website.
The application details of the next cohort of the HKSES will be announced shortly.
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