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FSD brings equal opportunity

December 03, 2016

Toward integration

Toward integration:  Fire Services Department Assistant Divisional Officer Yeung Kai-wang and Fire Officer Mohammad Shakir.

The Fire Services Department has introduced bilingual recruitment tests to encourage ethnic minorities to join its ranks.

 

Previously only in Chinese, the department now has English and Chinese versions of its written aptitude tests.

 

English training materials are provided for applicants who plan to sit the examinations in English.

 

Mohammad Shakir moved to Hong Kong from Pakistan when he was seven-years-old. He is the second ethnic-minority person to join the department in the last three years.

 

Despite failing the department's tests twice and being told by many of his friends to give up, Mohammad finally realised his dream of becoming a fireman this month.

 

He is stationed at Tsim Sha Tsui Fire Station, an area where many ethnic minorities live.

 

He said most of his ethnic-minority friends shy away from aspiring to be firefighters.

 

"They are quite worried about their Chinese because, [while] most of them can speak fluent Cantonese and listen, most of them cannot really write or read any Chinese," he said.

 

Assistant Divisional Officer Yeung Kai-wang said having various ethnic backgrounds in the department can foster better services, but there are few applications from ethnic minorities in each recruitment drive.

 

He called on ethnic-minority students not to let their concerns about their Chinese-language proficiency cause them to miss the chance to join the department.

 

The department holds talks in schools and community service organisations to help minority youths prepare themselves for recruitment.

 

It plans to fill 140 vacancies for ambulance officers and 200 for fire officers next year.



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