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The following is issued on behalf of the Student Financial Assistance Agency:
The Student Financial Assistance Agency (SFAA) announced today (August 12) that around 90 per cent of eligible primary and secondary students (around 220,000), will receive advance payment of textbook assistance for the 2011/12 school year, beginning next Monday (August 15). The total amount of disbursement will be around $460 million. Eligible students will receive a subsidy for internet access charges at the same time.
The SFAA will continue to swiftly process the remaining applications which were submitted late or with incomplete information at the time of application. The SFAA will make the best effort to disburse subsidies to the second batch of eligible families passing the 2011/12 means test before the end of August 2011.
A spokesman for the SFAA said, "To provide enhanced support for needy students, the Government announced a series of measures in the 2010-11 Policy Address and in the 2011-12 Budget in this regard."
These measures include -
(i) relaxing the income ceiling for full level of student financial assistance under the means test mechanism of the SFAA so that more students passing the means test can receive full assistance. Of the first batch of 222,000 primary and secondary students who will receive textbook assistance in advance in August, 125,000 are eligible for full grant while 97,000 are eligible for half grant. Around 60,000 of these students, who only received half-level assistance in the previous school year, will now receive full assistance. The percentage of students receiving full-level assistance has substantially increased from around 29 per cent in the last school year to around 56 per cent of all beneficiaries in the 2011/12 school year.
(ii) on the basis of the relaxed means test mechanism, increasing the flat-rate grant under the School Textbook Assistance Scheme (STAS) from $408 to $1,000 per student per year (pspy) for full-grant students and from $204 to $500 pspy for half-grant students for the 2011/12 school year.
Over the past few years, the SFAA has made continued efforts to improve the processing procedures for disbursement of textbook assistance so that needy students can receive textbook assistance as early as possible. Starting from the 2006/07 school year, the SFAA introduced the "Principal Recommendation Scheme", under which the principals of primary and secondary schools could recommend needy students for early application to the SFAA so that eligible students would receive advance payment of textbook assistance before start of the school year. Around 4,000 students benefitted from the Scheme each year.
In order to enable more needy students to receive advance payment of textbook assistance, the SFAA has extended the coverage of the Scheme in the 2010/11 school year. Apart from inviting principals to recommend needy students for early application, the SFAA has also taken the initiative to invite families with relatively lower income as indicated in its records to submit applications early. Under the extended Scheme, the number of students who can receive advance payment of textbook assistance has increased substantially from about 4,000 students per year to about 30,000 students in the 2010/11 school year.
In the 2011/12 school year, the SFAA has re-engineered and further streamlined the procedures for processing STAS applications. Through risk management, strengthening of manpower and enhancement of the computer system, the SFAA has been able to advance the payment of textbook assistance to those eligible primary and secondary students who submit applications for financial assistance to the SFAA before the end of May and have provided complete information, passed the means test for the new school year and have received textbook assistance in the previous school year. Following these re-engineered procedures, the SFAA can disburse textbook assistance and subsidy for Internet access charges to over
220,000 primary and secondary students in August this year, representing around 90 per cent of all applications received by SFAA so far.
The SFAA spokesman said, "We believe that by relaxing the means test mechanism, increasing the flat-rate grant under STAS and re-engineering the procedures for handling applications and disbursement of textbook assistance, we can greatly relieve the financial burden of low-income families in meeting the education-related expenses of their children in the new school year."
The SFAA will continue to swiftly process the remaining applications with a view to disbursing the subsidy through bank transfer to the second batch of primary and secondary students who have passed the means test for the 2011/12 school year before the end of August 2011.
As for first-time applicants, the SFAA will, in accordance with established practice, first issue a written notification to the families concerned informing them of the result of their means test and giving them details on application for individual financial assistance schemes. Upon confirming the eligibility of the students under individual schemes, the SFAA will disburse assistance to these new applicants as soon as possible.
For any enquiry, members of the public can dial SFAA's hotline at 8226 7067 during the office hours.
Ends/Friday, August 12, 2011
Issued at HKT 16:50
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