Reading, Writing, And Rote Learning...Drive Students To Western Schools

Jardine Fleming, the Hong Kong-based investment bank, faces a problem that afflicts many foreign companies in the former British colony. Seeking to recruit well-trained professionals, it has tried to tap a large pool of graduates from the eight local universities. But there aren't enough qualified students to meet its specialized needs. So Jardine invariably ends up looking abroad. "We are very powerfully oriented toward foreign recruitment at the professional level," says David Dodwell, the firm's corporate-communications chief.

As Hong Kong strives to keep its edge as Asia's premier metropolitan hub, the demands placed on its workforce have become greater. It needs employees that are more creative--the type of freethinkers the current system fails to produce. Another sticking point is English fluency, which isn't at the proficiency levels the business community would like to see. "Hong Kong is a highly specialized economy with highly specialized needs, just like London or New York," says Dodwell, who is also the organizer of the Business Coalition on Education, representing more than 15,000 companies.