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    Following is a question by the Hon Audrey Eu and a written reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Professor Arthur K C Li, in the Legislative Council today (April 20):

Question:

Will the Government inform this Council of the respective average annual amounts of public subsidies provided to each primary school student, secondary school student and university student from the 2004-05 to 2009-10 school years?

Reply:

Madam President,

    The Government compiles its annual estimates and maintains expenditure information on a financial year basis.  Financial information on the average amount of expenditure under Head 156 Education and Manpower Bureau per primary and secondary school student and Head 190 University Grants Committee (UGC) per university student for 2004-05 Revised Estimate and 2005-06 Draft Estimate is given below.  For 2006-07 and beyond, as the annual provision for the education sector has yet to be determined having regard to, inter alia, the fiscal position of the Government, the average expenditure information is not available.

                             Average government

                          expenditure per student

                          2004-05             2005-06

                    Revised Estimate    Draft Estimate

                            $                     $

Primary(1)                 24,960               27,180

Secondary(1)               34,290               35,430

Universities              204,400              207,400

(funded by UGC) (2)

Note:

(1)This refers to the overall weighted average government expenditure per student of publicly-funded primary/secondary school places. For secondary schools, the estimated tuition fee income has been deducted in the calculation where appropriate.

(2)The average government expenditure per university student is provided by the UGC for the relevant academic years. In this context, it is calculated on the basis of the institutions' total recurrent funding requirements and full-time equivalent approved student number targets for all levels of studies before deduction of tuition fee income. It does not include non-recurrent funding for the Matching Grant Scheme, Student Exchange Programme and Mainland Scholarship Scheme.

Ends/Wednesday, April 20, 2005

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