Lessons exchange: Secretary for Education Michael Suen presents a souvenir to Vice-Minister of Education Zhang Xin-Sheng, who is leading the Chinese delegation to the 4th APEC Education Ministerial Meeting.

Hong Kong is dedicated to boosting students' critical and exploratory thinking, self-confidence, team spirit, all-round development and life-long learning capability, Secretary for Education Michael Suen tells the 4th Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation's Education Ministerial Meeting in Peru.

At the meeting's plenary session this morning, member economies discussed efforts to cultivate and enhance students' whole-person development and mastery of competencies to meet the needs of the 21st century.

Discussion centred around four priority areas - mathematics and science, career and technical education, language learning, information and communication technologies, and systemic reform.

Mr Suen said language learning is important to enable students be proficient in both Chinese and English - and teacher quality is key to enhancing English learning. He said measures have been put in place to upgrade the language teaching force.

On mathematics and science, Mr Suen said the focus in Hong Kong's curricula is to boost students' creativity and critical thinking, cultivate their positive values and attitudes, and equip them with the capability to inquire and solve problems in daily life.

The applied learning courses to be offered under the new senior secondary academic structure will offer a broad and balanced curriculum for students. This is in line with the views raised in discussions at the conference on career and technical education, he added.