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Following is a question by the Hon Ma Lik and a written reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Professor Arthur K C Li, in the Legislative Council today (December 7):
Question:
Starting from the 2000/01 school year, public-funded primary and secondary schools may apply for the Capacity Enhancement Grant ("CEG") to procure outside services or employ temporary staff on top of their normal establishment, in order to relieve the workload of their teachers so that they may have more capacity to concentrate on performing the following three major tasks: curriculum development, enhancing students' language proficiency, and coping with the diverse and special learning needs of students. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the respective amounts and percentages of CEG spent on the above three tasks in each of the past three school years;
(b) of the amount and percentage of CEG spent on employing staff in each of the past three school years, and the total number of such staff, together with a breakdown of the number by the nature of their duties; and
(c) whether it has assessed the effectiveness of providing CEG to schools in relieving the teachers' workload; if it has, of the outcome of the assessment?
Reply:
Madam President,
The Education and Manpower Bureau has conducted a review of the Capacity Enhancement Grant (CEG) in the initial three years of implementation. As to the use of the grant from the 2003/04 school year onwards, we understand that it is basically similar to that of the first three years.
(a) & (b) Regarding the use of CEG, the review covered only the 2001/02 and 2002/03 school years. Details are set out in Annex.
(c) According to the review report, the majority of teachers agreed that CEG had helped them in their teaching work, including reducing their workload, allowing them to have more time to prepare lessons, providing schools with additional resources for curriculum development, improving their quality of teaching, and helping them cope with students of diverse abilities and special learning needs. As indicated in the review report, 82% of primary school teachers and 84% of secondary school teachers considered that their workload had been reduced as a result of CEG.
In addition, over 90% of schools were of the view that CEG had helped them raise schools' ability in resource management and enhance their management culture. Ninety-nine per cent of them found that CEG had helped them raise students' interest in learning and in language subjects, encourage more teachers and students to use IT in teaching and learning, improve the performance of students who were relatively weak, and improve their academic performance.
In view of the above, we have decided to continue to provide CEG to schools from the 2004/05 school year onwards for at least three years.
Ends/Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Issued at HKT 16:06
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