EdUHK Hosts International Symposium on Community Engagement for Vocational and Professional Education and Training
EdUHK Hosts International Symposium on Community Engagement for Vocational and Professional Education and Training
Experts and scholars from the UK and Italy, and representatives from Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET) providers in Hong Kong gathered at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) today (15 March) for the International Symposium: Promoting Community Engagement for Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET), to discuss the role of VPET in the community and its involvement in society’s sustainable development.
The symposium was hosted by the UNESCO UNEVOC Centre (Hong Kong) and the Department of International Education and Lifelong Learning (IELL) at EdUHK, and was co-organised by the PASCAL Observatory at the University of Glasgow.
In his welcoming remarks, Professor John Lee Chi-kin, Vice President (Academic) of EdUHK, said the symposium aimed “to provide a platform for VPET providers in Hong Kong to share ideas and practices for community engagement and discuss related issues.” He said he believed the symposium had provided a great opportunity to foster future collaboration among participants and contribute to the improvement of VPET’s involvement in the sustainable development of society.
During the symposium, Dr Margarita Pavlova, Director of the UNESCO-UNEVOC Centre (Hong Kong) and organiser of the symposium, walked the audience through the findings of two VPET-related research projects. The first one, jointly conducted with the University of Glasgow, the Hong Kong College of Technology, and the Hang Seng Management College, focused on the effectiveness of the benchmarking tool developed by University of Glasgow and applied by the above two VPET providers in Hong Kong.
The second one was a General Research Fund (GRF) project, titled “Greening Skills in Hong Kong: effective partnerships between vocational education, government and industry to support the greening of the economy”, led by Dr. Margarita Pavlova. The findings revealed that although VPET providers in Hong Kong engaged in variety of activities in the community, the focus on environmental/sustainability issues was not a major dimension of their work.
Dr Pavlova said, “Although community engagement is only one aspect of the GRF, it contributes to the conceptualisation of a partnership model that was developed as the result of this project. The project formulates a set of recommendations on the ways partnerships can be improved to support the greening of Hong Kong.”
Other speakers at the symposium included Professor Michael Osborne and Dr John Tibbitt from the University of Glasgow, the developers of the benchmarking tool; Professor Roberta Piazza from the University of Catania; Ms Ada Li from the Hong Kong College of Technology (HKCT); Dr Shirley Yeung, the founding director of the Centre for Corporate Sustainability and Innovation at Hang Seng Management College (HSMC); and Mr Leung Yam-shing from the Vocational Education Council (VTC). Representatives from major VPET institutions in Hong Kong also attended the symposium.
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