Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip today met two students from the Vocational Training Council's Shine Skills Centre who are participating in this year's government internship scheme to learn about their experience.

He encouraged the students to continue to learn and equip themselves for the future.

A total of 32 students from the centre who took part in the scheme were deployed to 23 government bureaus and departments in October for around eight weeks of internships.

Among them, Ryan Ramirez and Chan Ho-ting were assigned to work in the Civil Service Bureau. They both noted that the scheme has provided valuable internship experiences for them to gain new skills and achieve personal growth.

Mr Nip said he was pleased to know that apart from these two students, those deployed to other bureaus and departments have also made efforts in gaining new knowledge and worked actively during their internships.

Their good conduct and work performance has been highly commended by their colleagues and mentors, he added.

The civil service chief remarked that the scheme provides students with practical working experience to increase their competitiveness before they enter the employment market.

He believes the students have acquired different experiences and training throughout their internships and hopes that they can apply the knowledge in the future.

The internship scheme was rolled out in 2016 to enable students with special education needs to have internship opportunities in the Government to gain practical work experience, as well as to allow civil service colleagues to better appreciate students' potential.

So far, 490 student interns have participated in the scheme.

The scheme includes training elements, under which an experienced colleague will be assigned to each intern as a mentor who will brief the intern on government organisation and department operations as well as provide support.