2.24
16
Most private schools are run as profit-making institutions
and the government does not meet any part of their capital or
recurrent costs. Their tuition fees are, however, subject to the
approval of the Director of Education: in this connection they have
recently been permitted to set fees at 3 per cent above the agreed
notional levels, provided that the additional income is used to
supplement their teachers' salaries, a measure designed to promote
reasonable standards in such schools. Because all the public-sector
schools which are needed to meet the government's secondary expansion
targets have not yet been built, the government "buys" places at some
of the better-run private secondary schools (both non-profit-making
and independent) that is, the government pays to the schools concerned
the tuition fees of those pupils who have been sent there because
there are insufficient places in the government and government-aided
sector to accommodate them: this arrangement was introduced to avoid
delay in the implementation of the plan for nine years' free and
compulsory education for the 6 14 age groups. The bought places
in private independent schools will eventually be phased out as more
public-sector places become available. Under the bought-places scheme
limited recurrent aid is given to the non-profit-making schools
concerned (in the form either of a per caput grant or, in respect of
the residual Assisted Private Schools, teachers' allowances and
classroom allowances details are given in chapter 5).
2.25
The term "public-sector" places (when used in this report
in reference to schools) means those provided in government and government
aided schools, together with the bought places in private schools.
All other places are described as "private-sector" places. Fuller
information on the financing of schools is given in chapter 5.