校友及學生成就
Merit Award In Essay Writing Competition
更新日期： 14/04/2013
Wong Man Ho, Jerry (4F) who is Senior English Ambassador, won a Merit award for an English/Liberal Studies essay he prepared for the Centennial College Liberal Education Essay Writing Competition in the local Secondary Schools English Group category for Senior students of Form 4 or above.
This award is particularly an honour as there were only 8 prizes (for 1st, 2nd, 3rd places and 5 Merit Certificates) awarded for this category. Wong Man Ho attended the awards presentation at HKU Space on Saturday 9 March, and was presented with his Merit Award plus a $500 book coupon.
Students could write an essay on any topic relevant to Liberal Studies in relation to the development of Hong Kong and its importance to student development. Jerry chose to write on "Hikikomori", a Japanese word for students who are fearful of attending school so hide in their bedrooms to escape the outside world. This phenomenon is also of concern in Hong Kong society. Jerry's essay is shown as follows,
Hikikomori
Nowadays, modern technology and financial growth are the two fundamental indexes for the development for Hong Kong. This progress can be thwarted by social problems, such as the stay-at-home trend of `hikikomori’ youth which thwarts the supply of labour to the workforce.
Hikikomori, a word borrowed from Japan where the trend started, are usually youth who spend most of their time at home because they are afraid of the people and pressures outside, so they start to lose their self-esteem and determination for the future. According to a recent survey provided by the Educational Bureau, there are approximately 1,300 students who drop out and become hikikomori every year. This is on top of the 18,500 hikikomori reported by the Hong Kong Church Services in 2007. That means you could estimate 6,500 extra hikikomori in Hong Kong in the 5 years since 2007.
One significant reason for this phenomenon is that many school graduates are not able to enter University due to a lack of available places for students. According to the University Grants Committee, there are only about 15,000 available places of universities in Hong Kong each year for the approximately 75,400 school graduates each year, as shown by the Census and Statistics Department in 2009. In 2012, over 57,000 candidates failed to enter university even though they passed the HKDSE exam, (as reported in the South China Morning Post on 18 August 2012). Without any tertiary qualifications, many of these adolescents become indecisive and spend most of their time surfing the Internet. This not only affects their faith in their future, but also decreases the number of workers in society directly.
Besides this, it is notable that many University graduates also remain out of the workforce due to an impracticable expectation they have of the future as they assume that they can still have the ability to accomplish whatever they want. According to a news article of the Human Resources Information Hub on 30th August 2012, there was a total of 93,500 registered vacancies received by the Labor Department within one month. However, because many students want to get a high-salary occupation, they turn their backs on these jobs and keep studying after graduation often in the vain hope of gaining one of the very few high-paid academic positions available. Aside from the impact on the supply of labour to industry, some of these University graduates lose their hope and become hikikomori.
I have heard many people say that the hikikomori phenomenon usually only emerges among students with a low educational standard, but elite students can also be hikikomori too. Growing up in a millionaire family, they don’t need to make a living and become lazy as their parents can easily support their daily living expenses.
It is prominent that we should always be aware of the possible consequences about the increasing trend of hikikomori. In my point of view, if the number of them keeps increasing, our city would collapse as there would be insufficient teenagers working in our society. On the other hand, their laziness can also increase the workload of their parents as they need to support their daily cost to support the whole family.
But the cloud does have a silver lining as I think some of them can easily be helped with the participation of family and friends.
The life of one hikikomori was shown on the episode of "Sunday" as reported on 20th March 2005. The hikikomori, Bill, was confident in his school life but later found it hard to overcome the difficulties of
the senior school years. Soon, he not only didn’t want to see his classmates but also spent lots of time playing video games so as to gain his feeling of success. But later, he started to remember his old school life and that encouraged him to go back to school. Then with the assistance of his teachers and classmates, he caught up with his education. Now, he not only has a high appreciation of Computer Technology but has also won numerous tournaments from it. Through his story, it showed that hikikomori also have the ability to get out of darkness.
In an attempt to take these problems in hand, I suggest more and more people ought to put down their negative views of hikikomori and try to accept them. Although it might not be significant, the understanding and care of hikikomori can help them to establish confidence in overcoming obstacles and accept their past and set goals for the future. If more and more people participate in these campaigns and spread this message widely, the serious phenomenon of discriminating against hikikomori may be overcome too.
Of course, people may think that they do not have the obligation to help hikikomori. But to a community, like with family, blood is thicker than water, so if the Hong Kong community doesn't show its respect and care towards their own hikikomori, how could they search for help and appreciation within their own community? According to a news article posted on Sing Tao Newspaper on 21stDecember 2010, although the overall number of labor force in Hong Kong has been rising slightly, it is expected to decline to 385 million in 2029. Besides that, the number of elderly in Hong Kong is rising too, so if our city is put in jeopardy due to the lack of labor force, would you still have the thought of doing nothing about it?
Lastly, although hikikomori is not a prominent issue worldwide, the effects of it can directly corrupt the development of our country if this trend continues to spread. Since adolescence holds the fundamental keys for the future of the nation, as they are the future leaders in industry and government as well as future parents, it is vital to alleviate and pay attention to this trend of hikikomori so as to improve the development of the future of Hong Kong.
