How liberal arts education can complement Hong Kong’s STEM focus and help future workers thrive
- Despite the prevalence of technology in our lives and the heavy focus on STEM education, employers are also looking for people with ‘soft skills’
- A liberal arts education which helps students develop these vital skills is essential to training the city’s future workforce and building a better society
In a world where economic growth is driven by knowledge and innovation, and with the major challenges facing humankind requiring solutions that transcend boundaries, it is more important than ever for the future workforce to possess technical knowledge as well as vital skills including creativity, interdisciplinary thinking and the ability to navigate through ambiguity.
Are soft skills really more important than academic subjects to employers?
Nonetheless, liberal arts subjects are considered by some to only be valuable to the elite or dismissed as guaranteeing poor pay. This is certainly understandable, given that graduates in applied subjects often enjoy an advantage over those in the liberal arts when they seek early career opportunities.
The value of the knowledge and skills liberal arts graduates have tends to be more manifest during the later stages of their career. The problem is not the value of liberal arts education itself but how it should be delivered in a 21st-century context.
For elective subjects, more than 90 per cent of participating schools offered biology and chemistry, compared to 70 per cent for history, 30 per cent for Chinese literature and 7 per cent for English-language literature. While chemistry and biology each had around 12,000 students enrolled, geography only had about 8,000, history less than 5,000, Chinese literature 1,300 and English-language literature less than 300.
The idea isn’t to pit liberal arts against the STEM fields, and neither are they incompatible. The knowledge and skills a liberal arts education provides benefit the flourishing of STEM talent.
A liberal arts education offers just that. While many people do believe in the value of liberal arts education, one must reimagine what it means and how it should be delivered to remain relevant in the 21st century.
Wai-Hong Tang is an independent researcher on the international political economy of East and Central Asia
Neville Lai is an independent researcher on global affairs