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The Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, today (April 15) presented certificates to 1 521 students who were offered scholarships and awards under the HKSAR Government Scholarship Fund (GSF) and 4 139 scholarship and award recipients under the Self-financing Post-secondary Education Fund (SPEF) in the 2014/15 academic year. The total value of scholarships and awards distributed to these 5 660 students amounted to about $136 million.
A spokesman for the Education Bureau said, "The Government is dedicated to grooming and supporting post-secondary students in pursuing all-round development, striving for excellence and broadening their horizons and international outlook, thereby contributing to the enhancement of Hong Kong's competitiveness as Asia's world city amidst intense competition in a globalised knowledge economy.
"The GSF was established in 2008 to attract outstanding local students to advance their studies at home, and meritorious non-local students to pursue higher education opportunities in Hong Kong. Scholarships are offered to students studying full-time publicly funded undergraduate-level or above programmes and students studying full-time publicly funded sub-degree programmes. (A list of 10 participating institutions is in Annex I.)
"The Self-financing Post-secondary Scholarship Scheme was established under the SPEF in 2011 to promote the quality and sustainable development of the self-financing post-secondary sector. Under the scheme, scholarships and awards are offered to students pursuing full-time locally accredited self-financing sub-degree or undergraduate programmes." (A list of 31 participating institutions is in Annex II.)
Apart from offering the Talent Development Scholarship and the Reaching Out Award, both the GSF and the SPEF give recognition to deserving post-secondary students with special educational needs (SEN) through the Endeavour Merit Award and the Endeavour Scholarship, both established in the 2013/14 academic year, respectively. This year, a total of 149 SEN students received the scholarship and award, compared with 100 last year.
In addition, the Scholarship Fund every year awards targeted scholarships to 10 first-year non-local full-time students from Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, India and Korea who are enrolled in publicly funded degree programmes in Hong Kong. The SPEF also offers the Outstanding Performance Scholarship and the Best Progress Award.
In the 2014/15 academic year, 1 145 local and 376 non-local students received scholarships from the GSF. These include 933 publicly funded undergraduate-level or above students and 588 students studying in publicly funded sub-degree programmes. In addition, the Fund also reserved about $35 million for the Talent Development Scholarship and the Reaching Out Award. Last year, the total number of recipients of the scholarship and the award was 2 833 and the total value amounted to about $28 million.
The SPEF offered scholarships and awards to 4 051 local and 88 non-local students this academic year. Of these recipients, 1 784 studied sub-degree programmes and the remaining 2 355 pursued undergraduate courses.
Details of the scholarships and awards under the GSF are available at www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/postsecondary/local-higher-edu/publicly-funded-programmmes/scholarship.html. Those under the SPEF are available at www.cspe.edu.hk/content/Overview-Measures-Fund-SPSS?lang=EN.
Ends/Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Issued at HKT 17:12
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