Sixty students awarded scholarships for excellence (with photos)

     The Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, today (August 23) officiated at the Award Presentation Ceremony 2024 of the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme (HKSES). Sixty students were selected as the 10th 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 driving the long-term development of society and the economy. The Government has always attached great importance to the development of young people. The HKSES highlights the Government's commitment to and efforts in fostering the talent development of the next generation. 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 seizing the immense opportunities brought about by the nation's development.

     All awardees received their formal secondary school education in Hong Kong, studying either local or non-local curricula. Among them, 51 will be pursuing undergraduate studies and nine 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 over 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 923 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, 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).
           
     Launched in November 2014, the HKSES has been regularised since the 2019/20 academic year. 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 930 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.