Wai-Hong TangandNeville Lai

Opinion | 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

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A teacher and student play with a robot at Asbury Methodist Primary School in Kwai Chung on November 4, 2022. The heavy focus on STEM education in Hong Kong has come at the expense of liberal arts education. Photo: Edmond So

Wai-Hong TangandNeville Lai

Published: 8:15am, 5 Apr 2023

We live in a techno-feudal world. Seemingly all aspects of our lives are now constantly monitored, organised or controlled by tech companies. The rise of ChatGPT and other open-source AI applications further challenges human-technology relations by redefining the meaning of education, learning and creativity.

Although educators across the world are still trying to understand the pedagogical implications of these tools, the education sector has long fixated on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as the core of education for the future.

The abundance of success stories of programmers and software engineers at leading tech firms has fuelled the career dreams of younger generations. Schools and universities, meanwhile, compete to be recognised as the most innovative educational institutions with the best STEM programmes.

But even though many corporations today expect employees to possess high quantitative and digital literacy, they are also increasingly looking for people with social, emotional and cognitive skills including leadership, project management, critical thinking, continuous learning and empathy. These skills cannot be quantified, automated or substituted by machines, yet they are essential to organisational success.

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.

A liberal arts education which helps students develop these vital skills is essential to training the future workforce. Even more important but often overlooked is the importance of a liberal arts education to building a pluralistic, resilient civil society.