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Following is a question by the Hon Michael Mak and a written reply by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, in the Legislative Council today (November 6):

Question:

Regarding the expenditure of tertiary institutions on full-time courses for training staff of the medical, nursing and allied health professional grades, as well as the employment situation of the graduates concerned, will the Government inform this Council of the following, in respect of each grade:

(a) the total expenditure, number of graduates and per capita cost for training the graduates of the respective institutions in each of the past five years;

(b) the respective total numbers of places for bachelors' degree, diploma and high diploma courses in each of the next five years;

(c) the employment situation of graduates of the respective institutions at the end of the graduation year over the past five years; and, among them, the number and percentage of those who are involved in duties related to their studies, and their average starting salaries; and

(d) the respective numbers of graduates employed/to be employed by government departments and public-funded organizations in each of the past five years and next five years, as well as the terms of appointment concerned?

Reply :

Madam President,

(a) The annual student unit cost and the number of graduates of medicine, nursing and allied health full-time first degree programmes in the University Grants Committee (UGC) sector are set out at Annex I.

As the accounts for 2001/02 are yet to be finalized, the figures for 2001/02 are not yet available.

(b) The planned student intakes of the relevant programmes in this triennium are presented as at Annex II. However, since student numbers in the next triennium is still being planned, we do not have the figures for the 2004/05 academic year and beyond.

(c) According to the annual graduate employment surveys conducted by the UGC-funded institutions, the employment situation of full-time graduates of the relevant first degree programmes as at the end of the graduation year between 1998 and 2001 is set out at Annex III. The employment situation of graduates in 2002 is not yet available.

(d) The number of staff recruited by the Department of Health (DH), the Social Welfare Department (SWD), the Hospital Authority (HA) and the Prince Philip Dental Hospital (PPDH) in the past five years are as at Annex IV.

The number of staff to be recruited in future years would depend primarily on service need. The emphasis of the future health care system will be placed more on primary health care, ambulatory care and community care programmes. This will result in greater demand for a multi-skilled health care workforce and provide more flexibility in manpower planning. As far as the terms of employment is concerned, the HA and PPDH have been employing staff on contract terms. Regarding the two government departments, i.e. SWD and DH, about half of their new recruits in the past five years were employed on civil service terms while the rest were on non-civil service contract terms.

End/Wednesday, November 6, 2002

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