Education chief dismisses push for final-year university internships amid AI threat

Hong Kong’s education minister has shot down a suggestion to turn the final stretch of undergraduate degree programmes into an internship period to boost employability, amid a fall in entry-level jobs due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said on Wednesday that university courses should not be changed solely to meet manpower needs or be based on single indicators such as labour market supply and demand data.

She was responding to lawmaker Priscilla Leung Mei-fun’s question about whether authorities would reform four-year bachelor’s degree programmes by converting the final year into an internship year to let students enter the workforce earlier.