The Youth Pre-employment Training
Programme (YPTP) is approaching its second anniversary since
the HKSAR government has launched it in September 1999. It was
designed to increase the employability of adolescent aged 15
to 19 who had already quitted school. The program also prepares
the trainees for the workforce and helps them set a longer-term
personal development plan. Hong Kong Christian Service (HKCS)
is one of the employers participating in the program to provide
trainees a variety of pre-employment training.
Recent statistics from the
government Labour Department shows that among the 12,000+ trainees,
more than 3800 of them decided to pursue further training upon
their completion of the program. However, due to the fact that
most trainees lack academic qualification and the YPTP is not
mandated to provide such, further training becomes impossible
when academic achievement is one of the enrolment requirements.
Nonetheless, we believe it is right for society to accept and
give this group of forgotten youngsters a chance and to encourage
them to broaden their skill or education; therefore HKCS pioneered
to accept the completion of YPTP as equivalence to the form-5
prerequisite to our training courses. For instance, one of our
subsidiaries Vocational Training Centre in Kwun Tong has waived
the academic requirement of some day-courses for the YPTP graduates.
These are endeavours to foster a channel for youngsters who
wish to obtain required qualifications.
To show our commitment to the
quest, i.e. to facilitate continuous learning and to build a
bridge to further training for the trainees, along with five
other organizations we attended the Labour Department's "Signing
Ceremony for Memorandum of Undertaking" on June 7, 2001
held at the YMCA International House. The Principal of Kwun
Tong Vocational Training Centre represented HKCS to speak and
sign at the ceremony. Afterwards at the reception, two trainees,
who had completed YPTP and were successfully employed through
our referral, gave their testimony to the press and electronic
media. They both felt positive about the program where they
learnt more about the workforce and made a lot of friends as
well. They had learnt communication skills and had acquired
basic computer knowledge from the program. The current job they
have with our Integrated Team has helped them learn more clerical
skills and allowed them to utilize their strength. They both
indicated their desire to pursue further training. On the other
hand, their colleagues expressed the pleasure in seeing they
were responsible, initiative and willing to try; overall their
performance was satisfactory.
