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More students are benefiting from the HKSAR Government Scholarship Fund, with 514 students from nine participating institutions being awarded government scholarships in the 2010/11 academic year.
This is the third year the Fund has awarded scholarships to outstanding students. Over $29 million was allocated to 294 local and 220 non-local students taking publicly funded degree programmes.
Both the number of recipients and the amount of the scholarships awarded were more than double the figures for the 2008/09 academic year, the first year that the Fund awarded scholarships.
The Permanent Secretary for Education, Mrs Cherry Tse Ling Kit-ching, congratulated the recipients at a scholarship certificates presentation ceremony today (April 19).
Established in 2008 as a key initiative to foster the development of Hong Kong as a regional education hub, the $1 billion HKSAR Government Scholarship Fund recognises the achievements of outstanding local and non-local students in the higher education sector by awarding scholarships to students taking publicly funded degree programmes at degree or above levels.
The scholarships are $40,000 a year for each local student and $80,000 for each non-local student, and are awarded based on academic excellence, community service, leadership and communication skills.
In the 2011-12 Budget, the Financial Secretary proposes to inject $250 million into the Scholarship Fund to extend the benefit to students of full-time publicly funded sub-degree programmes. It is expected that the first batch of scholarships to publicly funded sub-degree students will be awarded in the 2011/12 academic year.
The nine participating institutions are the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Lingnan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Ends/Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Issued at HKT 16:58
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