The Standard - Latest NewsToday, 07:01
Kinling Lo Monday, October 19, 2015
Local youths will have more chances to climb the social ladder if schools are forced to publish data of their students' results, according to an official from the Britain's Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.
David Johnston visited Hong Kong for the first time as a guest speaker for Hong Kong's Commission on Poverty Summit recently to share his experience in "promoting youth upward mobility."
Johnston said the strong correlation between academic or career achievements and starting one's life poor as a child has been drawn in research from around the world.
He said education is the universal way to help young people from poorer families create better life chances and enabling more social mobility. It is the government's role is to ensure the quality of schools across the territory, Johnston said.
"The UK government now requires schools to publish data of the school performances. For example, destination data where students went after getting public exam results, which university did they go to and what kind of job they got afterwards," he said.
"The only reason we care about test results is because we think that determines a better life."
Johnston believes a more transparent mechanism could help society judge whether such an assumption is correct or not.
If students achieved good results but did not progress as far as expected, then schools should focus on soft skills development and not just academic results.
He said he learned that schools in Hong Kong do not have to provide such data to the public, but he said this policy has been effective in driving up school performances in the UK, and increased the chance for poorer children to receive better education.
Johnson said another way to help those youth from grassroots families was to boost their confidence in different ways.
He believes the SAR government's new "Life Buddies" Mentorship Programme, organized by the Youth Education, Employment and Training Task Force, could help those youth from a poorer socioeconomic background. It is also similar to a program running successfully in the UK.
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