Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung concluded her trip to Beijing today by visiting Peking University to call on its President Gong Qihuang.

They exchanged views on collaboration in training for the civil service and explored room for further co-operation.

“Peking University has always been a key partner for civil service training for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. We have a history of more than 20 years of co-organising national studies courses with the university and we will have closer co-operation in future,” Mrs Yeung noted.

Among the two new training programmes to be launched by the Civil Service College this year is an in-depth training programme in collaboration with the Institute for Hong Kong & Macau Studies of Peking University on “one country, two systems” and contemporary China for directorate officers.

The civil service chief also attended a working seminar with the university’s Dean of the School of Government Prof Yan Jirong and met the Hong Kong SAR civil servants who have enrolled in the Master's Degree in Public Policy Programme.

The Hong Kong SAR Government and Peking University launched the two-year master's degree programme for senior civil servants in September last year. Participants have to attend the programme on a full-time basis at the university in their first year and complete a thesis while working in Hong Kong in their second year for graduation.

Mrs Yeung said: “The civil servants have the opportunity to conduct social research in different regions during their studies to experience the country's development in person. For example, they learnt about the implementation of the country's poverty alleviation measures by conducting social research on rural revitalisation and regional development in Midu County, Yunnan in February.

“The classroom training and field visits would enable colleagues to learn from their first-hand experience, stimulate their thinking, and deepen their understanding of the country's development so that they will contribute their best to society after returning to Hong Kong.”