HONG KONG - A ceremony was held here Saturday to mark the founding of Hong Kong STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) Education Alliance, which aims to foster the development of STEM education and innovation and technology (I&T) in Hong Kong.

Chief Executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Carrie Lam, Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong SAR Wang Zhimin and some other guests officiated at the ceremony.

Through liaising with people who support, promote and lead the development of STEM education in Hong Kong, the alliance aims to enhance students' interest in science and technology and strengthen students' necessary knowledge.

Speaking at the ceremony, Lam said that the Hong Kong SAR government puts a lot of emphasis on nurturing innovation and technology talent. In her latest policy address, she proposed to provide, starting from the 2019/20 school year, a new recurrent Life-wide Learning Grant with an annual provision of 900 million HK dollars (about $115 million).

Lam said the grant will support schools to take forward, on the present foundation, life-wide learning with enhanced efforts through organizing more out-of-classroom experiential learning activities in various curriculum areas such as STEM education, so as to broaden students' horizons and foster their overall development.

Tsui Lap-chee, president of the alliance said that for the purpose of Hong Kong becoming an international innovation and technology center, the alliance will train a huge number of scientific and technological talents with creativity and comprehensive, collaborative and problem-solving skills.

The alliance will also promote STEM activities and organize STEM competition to support STEM education in Hong Kong.

The 1st Hong Kong STEM Education Forum was also held by the alliance on Saturday, with the attendance of more than 700 experts, teachers and students. (1 US dollar = 7.82 HK dollars)