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The Government will discuss with the schools concerned and deploy resources of the current financial year as far as possible for them to carry out urgent and minor improvement works first, the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong said today (April 5).

Speaking on education and manpower issues in the resumed debate on the 2000 Appropriate Bill in the Legislative Council, Mr Wong said if major or urgent maintenance works was necessary for a school, the Government could still provide funding for works to be carried out immediately.

"We have always attached great importance to the maintenance of a favourable learning environment in schools. In the past five years, we have spent a total of $4.4 billion on the School Improvement Programme (SIP)," he noted.

"Up to now, improvement works in about 300 existing schools have been completed and works in 80 other schools are in progress.

"In view of the staggering increase in the cost of school improvement works in recent years, we consider it necessary to review the steps and procedures of the SIP to enhance cost-effectiveness and ensure proper utilization of public funds.

"To this end, we have commissioned a consultancy review and a report is expected to be ready by the end of this month. Meanwhile, improvement works on schools covered in Phases 1 to 3 which are already under way will proceed as scheduled. Of the 156 schools in Phases 2A and 4, improvement works for 47 schools will commence shortly.

Addressing legislators' concern that works for the remaining 109 schools in Phases 2A and 4 would be shelved, Mr Wong said that upon completion of the consultancy review, the Government would follow up on the recommendations to improve the cost-effectiveness of the SIP as soon as it could. It will also see to it that resources are allocated in the current financial year to enable projects which are cost-effective to proceed at an early date.

Mr Wong stressed that the consultancy review would not in any way undermine the safety of schools and the implementation of any maintenance works.

He also talked about such topics as informaton technology in education, tertiary education, employment of elementary workers, information technology training and occupational safety in his speech.

On education expenditure, Mr Wong noted that in the past few years, the growth in the appropriation for education had far exceeded the average growth of public expenditure.

In the 1996-97 financial year, the total expenditure on education accounted for 2.99 per cent of Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product. This was increased to 3.8 per cent in 1999-2000. A further increase to 4.15 per cent is expected in the 2000-01 financial year; this has already exceeded that of Singapore, which stood at 3.6 per cent in 1998, and is only slightly lower than that of Japan, which stood at 4.9 per cent in the recent years.

Mr Wong pointed out that the Government's current total expenditure on education represented 22.3 per cent of the total government expenditure, a proportion larger than those of many developed countries, such as the United States (14.4 per cent in 1995), the United Kingdom (12.4 per cent in 2000), Australia (11.5 per cent in 1998), Japan (16.7 per cent in 1997) and Singapore (20.5 per cent in 2000).

He added that the Government's overall provision for the 2000-01 financial year for adult education, which also covered evening school courses run by the Education Department, exceeded $81 million, and is larger than the actual expenditure in the past few years. The success rate of non-government institutions applying for funds to organise courses for adults in recent years is close to 80 per cent and the number of courses receiving government subsidies has also increased.

End/ Wednesday, April 5, 2000

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