The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health is today (December 5) investigating a suspected ciguatoxin poisoning case affecting one person. The case involves a 54-year-old… read more
The Chairman of the Hong Kong Maritime and Port Board (HKMPB) and the Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Mr Lam Sai-hung, continued his visit to Shanghai today (December 5). He led members of the HKMPB and industry representatives to participate in the Marintec China 2023, and officiated at the opening ceremony of the China Hong Kong Pavilion, showcasing Hong Kong’s competence and determination to establish itself as an international maritime centre.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mr Lam said that Hong Kong has long been recognised as one of the world’s leading maritime centres. With the staunch support of the motherland, Hong Kong continues to consolidate its status as an international maritime centre. The Transport and Logistics Bureau will promulgate an action plan on maritime and port development strategies within this month, with a view to enhancing high-end maritime services, facilitating the transformation towards green shipping, promoting smart initiatives and digitalisation in the maritime industry, as well as strengthening exchanges and collaboration among maritime industries in the Greater Bay Area and around the world.
Mr Lam added that it had been a four-year hiatus for the China Hong Kong Pavilion to return to Shanghai, and he expressed his heartfelt gratitude for the visit of Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Mr Xin Guobin, and for the support of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the Marine Department and various participating exhibitors for their concerted efforts in telling the good stories of Hong Kong at 2023 exhibition. Mr Lam and the delegation also had a luncheon with Shanghai maritime trade representatives to look for further co-operation opportunities between the two cities. The delegation then met with Vice Mayor of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government Mr Zhang Xiaohong; the Director of the Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission, Mr Yu Fulin; and Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce Mr Zhang Jie, to explore ways of strengthening collaboration in the maritime industries for achieving synergistic effects and mutual benefits.
The biennial Marintec China is the largest maritime event in Asia and the second-largest in scale in the world. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the last edition of the Marintec China was held in 2019. This year, the exhibition has attracted more than 2 000 participating companies displaying the latest products, technologies and concepts in the global shipbuilding industry. Exhibitors from Hong Kong are taking this opportunity to introduce to the global maritime community their newest products and services.
Mr Lam will visit an automated port and related facilities tomorrow (December 6) and then proceed to Hangzhou in the evening.
The business delegation of enterprises of Belt and Road countries operating in Hong Kong, led by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Algernon Yau, continued the visit to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) today (December 5) and visited renowned technology companies and organisations in Shenzhen and Guangzhou to learn about the business ecosystem and development potential of the GBA.
In the morning, Mr Yau led the delegation to visit the Huawei Headquarters in Shenzhen. They were briefed by representatives of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd on the company’s latest developments, including new innovative applications and services in areas such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and 5G solutions.
Mr Yau and the delegation then arrived in Guangzhou and attended a meeting and luncheon with the Director General of Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province, Mr Zhang Jinsong. Mr Yau said that the visit aims to capitalise on Hong Kong’s unique role under the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) and the long-standing close partnership with GBA cities to enable enterprises to gain an in-depth understanding of the vast business opportunities in the GBA, with a view to promoting Hong Kong as a service base for enterprises to tap the Mainland market. He hoped that maximum synergy could be created through this visit for achieving a win-win situation and fruitful outcomes of multipartite collaboration.
Mr Yau added that there are currently about 210 000 Hong Kong enterprises in Guangdong, accounting for 70 per cent of enterprises of foreign direct investment in Guangdong Province. Among them, some are offices established by overseas enterprises in Hong Kong. These enterprises leverage Hong Kong’s distinctive advantage of enjoying strong support of the motherland and being closely connected to the world for entering the Guangdong market via Hong Kong. He said that Guangdong and Hong Kong can offer staunch support to the high-quality development of the B&RI by making full use of the opportunities brought about by the GBA development in taking forward the relevant work.
In the afternoon, the delegation visited the Nansha Planning Exhibition Hall in Nansha District to learn about the district’s development and achievements in recent years, as well as the blueprint for its future development. The delegation later visited Pony.ai, an autonomous driving start-up in the district, to learn about the company’s latest developments and experienced first-hand its self-developed autonomous saloon cars.
The delegation returned to Hong Kong in the evening upon completion of the two-day visit to the GBA.
A spokesman for the Education Bureau (EDB) said the results in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 announced today (December 5) showed Hong Kong students’ steady performance in mathematical, scientific and reading literacy, with overall scores continuously surpassing the international average.
PISA is organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with an aim to assess the mathematical, scientific and the mother tongue reading literacy of 15-year-old students. Since 2000, PISA has been conducted in three-year cycles. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the eighth cycle of PISA was postponed to 2022, with participation of a total of 81 countries or economies. The EDB commissioned the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to conduct the main study in Hong Kong from May to July 2022. A total of 5 907 students aged 15 from 163 secondary schools participated in the study.
The spokesman said, “The purpose of PISA is to assess whether students have acquired the knowledge and skills essential for meeting the needs of future life, rather than evaluating their performance in specific school curricula. Affected by the pandemic, Hong Kong students experienced intermittent suspension of face-to-face classes. The main study of PISA 2022 was conducted at a time when Hong Kong had just gone through the fifth wave of the pandemic, and schools had just resumed half-day face-to-face classes. Notwithstanding the above, we were determined to participate in the assessment. Thanks to the concerted efforts of various sectors in supporting students’ learning, Hong Kong students were able to perform well in PISA 2022 despite various challenges.”
Mathematical literacy
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Hong Kong maintained its ranking in the fourth place with a score of 540, which was significantly above the international average of 472. The performance of Hong Kong students was outstanding, reaffirming the teaching effectiveness of schools and teachers in the subject. The EDB hopes that schools will continue to strengthen students’ capability in the application of mathematics and logical thinking through “Inquiry and Investigation” learning and teaching activities to meet future challenges and societal needs.
Scientific literacy
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Hong Kong’s ranking advanced from the ninth place in the previous cycle to the seventh place. Its score also increased from 517 to 520, which was significantly above the international average of 485. Hong Kong students have made progress and continued to maintain very high standards internationally. Over the past few years, the EDB has continuously enhanced the implementation of the Science curriculum, with a view to consolidating the foundation of the knowledge of science among students and strengthening their scientific investigation skills, thereby enhancing their scientific literacy. Furthermore, the EDB has invested significant effort into promoting STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) education to enhance students’ ability to integrate and apply knowledge and skills in these areas, strengthen their problem-solving skills and nurture their creative thinking. The EDB will continue to enrich relevant learning, such as integrating the learning of innovation and technology in class.
Mother tongue reading literacy
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Hong Kong ranked 11th, dropping from the fourth place in the previous cycle. Its score dropped from 524 to 500, while the international average stood at 476. In other international studies such as the “Progress in International Reading Literacy Study” conducted in 2021, Hong Kong students excelled and ranked second among 43 participating countries or regions. Nevertheless, with the pandemic entering its third year, the suspension of face-to-face classes and reduced school life had adversely affected the reading atmosphere. As pointed out by the CUHK Project Team, students might have allocated their learning time to different subjects during this period, thus reducing the time on reading. The EDB will work with the Project Team to conduct an in-depth analysis and devise targeted measures to address the reading interests and abilities of students in this age group following the resumption of normalcy after the pandemic. In addition, the EDB will step up efforts to support schools through diversified strategies to promote “Reading to Learn”, including provision of a recurrent grant to facilitate schools’ promotion of reading, advocating “Reading across the Curriculum”, as well as continuous provision of relevant professional development programmes, training and learning and teaching resources for teachers. The EDB will also continue to harness the efforts of government departments, universities, and cultural and educational institutions to organise various types of reading and cultural activities, with a view to further enhancing students’ reading literacy and fostering a reading culture.
The spokesman added, “In terms of education equity, Hong Kong ranked second among countries or economies with high academic achievements, indicating that the socio-economic status of Hong Kong students has minimal bearing on their performance. Generally speaking, during the period of class suspension amid the pandemic, schools in Hong Kong provided ample support to students. Students from different socio-economic backgrounds performed equally well. The PISA 2022 results reaffirmed the merits of the Hong Kong education system, which is able to provide all students with high-quality and equal education opportunities, thereby facilitating social mobility.
“The EDB commends students for their remarkable performance in mathematical and scientific literacy, which was attributed to their continuous learning at home during the suspension of face-to-face classes, fully achieving ‘suspending classes without suspending learning’. We also thank schools, teachers and various stakeholders for their continuous contributions to providing quality school education. We will draw reference from the findings of the PISA study to review our prevailing learning and teaching measures, in particular those relating to reading, to formulate targeted strategies for boosting students’ performance. We will also continue to collaborate closely with different stakeholders to strengthen learning and teaching efficacy in order to enhance the international competitiveness of Hong Kong students.”
Background information and key statistics of PISA 2022 are in the Annex. read more
The Department of Health (DH), together with the Security Bureau (SB), the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF), the Fire Services Department (FSD) and the Hospital Authority (HA) today (December 5) participated in the annual International Health Regulations (IHR) Exercise Crystal organised by the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO) to enhance public health emergency preparedness and response systems.
IHR Exercise Crystal, which has been held annually by the WPRO since 2008, is a functional exercise conducted virtually through video conference and other communication tools to test the communication of IHR focal points in terms of public health event reporting, verification, notification, communication and risk assessment, etc. The Centre for Health Protection of the DH, as an IHR focal point, has been participating in the exercise for years.
The simulated scenario of the IHR Exercise Crystal 2023 involved the emergence of a radiological incident. Today’s exercise consisted of two parts. The first part was a table-top exercise during which a number of detailed communications were sent from the WHO providing information on the evolving scenario and triggering tasks for completion by the participants. Representatives from the DH, the SB, the HKPF, the FSD and the HA discussed and co-ordinated the response measures required in the simulated scenario of detection of a related event with implications to Hong Kong. The second part was a debriefing led by the WPRO with experience sharing by participants including representatives from Hong Kong.
The Government has formulated contingency plans responding to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) agent attacks and established a CBRN Incident Advisory Group, which is composed of specialised technical personnel from the HKPF, the SB, the FSD, the DH and the HA, etc. They hold regular meetings to discuss contingency plans and procedures for CBRN incidents. The Government is also committed to providing efficient arrangements to deal with related incidents.
A spokesman for the DH said, “The exercise provides an opportunity to test the preparedness of relevant parties in the local setting to respond effectively to a radiological incident, as well as enhancing communication between the DH and disciplinary forces under the SB.”
“We will consolidate the experience gained from this exercise for reporting to the CBRN Incident Advisory Group to facilitate the latter to map out targeted and refined strategies in the future as appropriate,” the spokesman added.
