EDUCATION
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ex-officio members include the Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation, and Government officials.
A task force under ACTEQ has developed, in 1996, tentative language benchmarks for teachers of English in lower secondary levels, and also Putonghua teachers and teachers using Chinese as the medium of instruction in primary schools. Plans are being made to develop language benchmarks for other school levels. A pilot assessment exercise from October 1998 to February 1999 will finalise the tentative benchmarks and establish suitable exemption criteria. All new teachers joining the profession should meet established language benchmarks by the year 2000. All serving language teachers should meet the benchmarks by 2005 and all other serving teachers by 2008. Ample training opportunities will be provided by the government to serving teachers to help them meet the benchmarks within the prescribed period at a cost of $65 million per annum.
University Grants Committee
The University Grants Committee (UGC) is appointed by the Chief Executive to advise on the development and funding of higher education and administer public grants to eight publicly-funded tertiary institutions. It comprises non-local academics, local academics and local professionals and businessmen. Its secretariat is staffed by civil servants.
When the UGC was established in 1965 to administer grants to two publicly-funded tertiary institutions, there were only 4 100 full-time equivalent students. After decades of development in higher education, eight institutions are now under the UGC's aegis and the number of full-time equivalent students increased to 69 726 in the 1997-98 academic year (see Higher Education above).
The UGC plays a major role in monitoring quality assurance in its institutions. It started a series of Management Reviews of the institutions in early 1998. These seek to support the institutions in enhancing the quality of management; discharge the UGC's accountability for ensuring that devolved funds and resources are managed appropriately; and enhance effectiveness of institutions' internal resource allocation, planning and financial processes. The first round of Management Reviews is expected to be completed by the end of 1999.
To assess the research output performance of the UGC-funded institutions, the UGC prepared for a third Research Assessment Exercise to be undertaken in 1999. The findings will be used as the basis for allocating some of the research portion of the institutional recurrent grant for the 2001/02-2003/04 triennium.
The UGC also started on a scheme to support the development of Areas of Excellence in the UGC-funded institutions. This aims to build on existing areas of strength and to develop them into areas of potential regional or international excellence. This initiative will enable the tertiary institutions and our tertiary education sector as a whole to achieve and maintain recognition as world-class research centres in the international community and keep pace with rising international standards. Formal proposals were received in November 1998 and are to be considered by the UGC in early 1999.