EDUCATION
postgraduate programmes and 27 sub-degree programmes in four schools: Arts and Social Sciences, Business and Administration, Education, and Science and Technology. The university's Centre for Continuing and Community Education also offered 100 short courses intended for vocational training and enhancement purposes to more than 7 800 students in 1998–99.
Post-Secondary College
Hong Kong Shue Yan College, registered in 1976 under the Post-Secondary Colleges Ordinance, operates a four-year diploma programme. Its faculties of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce offer day and evening courses to more than 3 000 students. The college is a privately-funded institution and does not receive any direct subsidy but government financial assistance is available to its students in the form of grants. and loans.
Adult Education
Opportunities are available for adults to study in their spare time, either for personal development or to update knowledge and skills relevant to their work. Private schools offer language, business and computer courses. During the year, the Education Department provided courses from primary to senior secondary levels to adult learners at 42 centres. It also subvented adult education programmes operated by non-governmental organisations.
Student Finance
The Student Financial Assistance Agency administers several publicly funded schemes which ensure that no students are deprived of education for lack of financial means. It also administers privately funded scholarships awarded on the basis of academic merit. These schemes are described below.
Student Travel Subsidy
The Student Travel Subsidy Scheme provides a subsidy, on a means-tested basis, to full-time students aged 12 or above who have not yet completed their first degree- level studies and who live more than a 10-minute walk from their places of study. Needy students who pass the means test will receive a subsidy for home-school travel during term time at the rate of half of the average adult fare on public transport between students' residence and the location of their schools. In the 1998-99 academic year, $272.3 million was disbursed to 191 598 eligible students.
Needy primary students aged below 12 attending government or aided primary schools outside their residing Primary One Admission Nets and who live more than a 10-minute walk from their places of study are also provided travel subsidies for home-school travel on a means tested basis. In the 1998-99 academic year, $13.7 million was disbursed to 10 934 eligible students.
Textbook Assistance
The School Textbook Assistance Scheme provides cash grants, on a means-tested basis, to eligible Primary 1 to Secondary 7 students in public sector schools and local schools under the Direct Subsidy Scheme for the purchase of essential textbooks and stationery. In the 1998-99 academic year, $224.5 million was disbursed to 289 169 students.
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