Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang Political Assistant Jeremy Young Permanent Secretary Cherry Tse | Undersecretary Kenneth Chen Chief Secretary Henry Tang Name Michael Suen | |
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Preceded by Arthur Li (as Secretary for Education and Manpower) | ||
Michael Suen Ming-yeung ; born 7 April 1947) was the Secretary for Education of Hong Kong.
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Education
Suen attended Wah Yan College, a Jesuit school in Hong Kong.
Career
He joined the colonial Hong Kong Government in 1966 as an Administrative Officer and was promoted to the rank of Director of Bureau in January 1991.
During the early years of his career, he served in the former New Territories Administration, Resettlement Department and Environment Branch. He was appointed Secretary for Constitutional Affairs in March 1989 and Secretary for Home Affairs in November 1991. He continued his post as Secretary for Home Affairs on 8 July 1997 and took up the appointment as Secretary for Constitutional Affairs on 4 August 1997. Suen took up the post of Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands on 1 July 2002.
Upon the resignation of Donald Tsang on 25 May 2005, he assumed the post as the acting Chief Secretary for Administration, until Rafael Hui was appointed. In July 2007, he took over the position of Secretary for Education after Arthur Li retired.
Around 2007 he was known for pushing trilingual education with English, Cantonese and Putonghua to boost Hong Kong's competitiveness.
Health
On 27 April 2011, Suen announced that he was suffering from renal failure. Suen was also diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease on 21 December 2011. The new HK government headquarters found as many as 19 areas contaminated with legionella bacteria out of 43 water samples. Suen announced his recovery in January 2012.
2007 protest at home
For years as a housing chief, Suen denied to meet with housing rights activists until 2007, when some 30 activists, including Longhair Leung Kwok-hung finally camped out at Suen's house in Happy Valley to protest. Public housing citizens were suffering from excessive rent increase, and the activists tried to voice the concern. The protest turned violent outside his home, with five policemen and one protester injured. Leung was also arrested.
Illegal extension case
In 1994 Suen purchased a new home, the low-rise Shuk Yuen building in Green Lane Happy Valley. He then illegally extended the size of his home to make it bigger. As the former Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, his staff reportedly warned him against the illegal extension, sending him a letter in April 2006 to remove the extension, which he reportedly ignored it. In 2011, he agreed to reduce the size of the structure. Both the democratic and pro-Beijing camps criticised him.