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The government has proposed to provide ex-aided school teachers an option to remain in their original statutory provident funds upon joining Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools.

The Grant Schools Provident Fund (Amendment) Rules 2000 and the Subsidized Schools Provident Fund (Amendment) Rules 2000 will be gazetted on Friday (April 7).

The Amendment Rules seek to provide ex-aided school teachers, upon taking up employment in DSS schools, an option to remain in the two statutory provident funds, i.e. the Grant Schools Provident Fund (GSPF) and the Subsidized Schools Provident Fund (SSPF).

Currently, teachers in aided schools are covered by either the GSPF or the SSPF. Under existing legislation, non-aided school teachers, including DSS school teachers, are not eligible to join the two funds. Also, once an aided school teacher ceases to be employed by the aided school sector, he can no longer stay in the statutory provident funds.

"The existing provident fund arrangements cause difficulties to DSS schools in attracting good aided school teachers to join them. Also, aided schools have reservations on switching to DSS as their teachers will have to forego their provident fund benefits under the two statutory provident funds when they change their status from aided to DSS. This presents an obstacle to the Government's policy of developing a vibrant DSS school sector," the spokesman explained.

"In order to facilitate aided schools to join the DSS, and to facilitate aided school teachers to join DSS schools, we originally proposed to the Boards of Control of the GSPF and the SSPF that the provident fund benefits of aided school teachers should be preserved when their schools switch to the DSS, or when they leave their schools to join a DSS school."

"While the Board of Control of the GSPF supported the proposals, the Board of Control of the SSPF took the view that the purpose of the SSPF was for benefits of subsidized school teachers only. The Board, however, agreed that subsidized school teachers could stay in the SSPF for a maximum period of five years when their schools switched to the DSS."

"We consider it appropriate to respect the respective views of the Boards which comprise school council and teacher representatives, and hence propose in the Amendment Rules different arrangements for preserving provident fund benefits of grant school and subsidized school teachers joining DSS schools," the spokesman explained.

Consequently, the Amendment Rules will allow grant school teachers whose employers join the DSS or who leave the grant schools to take up employment in the DSS school sector for the first time an option to stay in the GSPF without any time limit. Subsidized school teachers, on the other hand, will be allowed to stay in the SSPF for a maximum of five years when their schools join the DSS.

The Amendment Rules will be tabled at the Legislative Council on April 12, 2000.

End/Wednesday, April 5, 2000

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