Hong Kong is ramping up efforts to integrate education with technology as the city strives to nurture new-generation talent to pave the way for its becoming an international innovation and technology hub.

Hong Kong Education City (EdCity), a wholly-owned government organization committed to promoting information technology education in Hong Kong, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tencent WeTech Academy on Wednesday, which will allow the two sides to collaborate on teacher training, curriculum development and digital learning resource sharing.

“The education technology innovation and coordination by EdCity and Tencent Group is not only a kind of cooperation between organizations, but also an educational practice that aims to create a digital education ecosystem in Hong Kong and is in line with the city’s goal of building itself into an international innovation and technology hub,” Sze Chun-fai, undersecretary for education, said at the signing ceremony.

READ MORE: Education technology: Going beyond online teaching

Executive Director of EdCity Tenny Lam highlighted the role technology plays in revitalizing education. “We will give full play to our role as a ‘superconnector’, optimize Hong Kong’s artificial intelligence (AI) education ecosystem through collaboration to promote digital education in the city and across the nation,” he added.

Hong Kong has attached high importance to education, with a focus on empowering the industry with technology. According to official data, total government recurrent expenditure on education amounted to HK$97.9 billion ($12.5 billion) in the 2022/23 fiscal year, surging by 62 percent from the HK$60.4 billion in the 2012/13 fiscal year.

READ MORE: Fast-paced AI development turns parents into students too

Meanwhile, the number of students declined from 1.1 million in the 2012 academic year to 0.99 million in the 2022 academic year. That means more resources were invested in each student over the past years.

Contact the writer at sally@chinadailyhk.com