ENCLOSURE No.2
MEMORANDUM ON THE PROPOSAL FOR A BLOCK GRANT
SYSTEM IN GRANT-IN-AID SCHOOLS
Under the 1924 Grant Code Capitation Grants were paid to Grant Schools at the rate of $50 for each pupil in classes 1 and 2, $30 for each pupil in Classes 3 to 6 and $20 for each pupil in Classes 7 and 8, and additional capitation grants were given for pupils presented for the Matriculation and Hong Kong Junior Leave Examinations. Under this system the Grant Schools found themselves in difficult circumstances, both financially and educationally, for they were unable to pay sufficiently high salaries to attract a really good teaching staff. Having no funds of their own except fee receipts, the only possible solution was to charge high fees, which parents were unwilling or unable to pay. It therefore became clear that if the education in Grant Schools was to be up to the required standard the Grant Code would have to be basically revised. After much consideration it was decided that the grant should be calculated as the difference between approved expenditure and fee receipts.
It was not thought possible to work on any Direct Grant System as in England for the Hong Kong Grant Schools had no source of income of their own, and also it was not considered desirable to pay large Government grants to schools charging high fees. As large sums of public money were involved and the schools were making no financial contributions of their own it was considered essential that adequate financial and general control should be exercised by Government and this was provided for in the New 1941 Grant Code.
The New Code had hardly been put in force in 1941 when the Japanese invasion occurred. In 1946 it was found that various minor changes and changes in salary clauses were needed to bring the Code into operation again, and after two years' working with the Code, in 1948, certain other minor amendments were found necessary in the light of experience, and also changes in salary scales had again to be made owing to the recommendations of the Salaries Commisson.
There had been considerable opposition to certain clauses of the Code from the beginning but the major objections seemed to have been met in 1946, excepting perhaps a general underlying objection to Government control and a desire for complete freedom.
When the 1948 version of the Code (see (1) attached) was put forward a small section of the Grant Schools took the opportunity to re-open the plea for a "Block Grant" and freedom from financial control. Their case is put forward in two letters attached (2) from the Hon. Sec. of the Anglican Grant Schools Meeting and (3)* ENCL. No. 1. from Bishop Hall, Chairman of the Anglican Schools Councils
*
PLEASE SEE
The pleas in favour of a Block Grant put forward in their letters are
(1)
(ii)
That under the present Code the Government fixes the teachers salaries and therefore the School Managers have lost freedom of action. (See para. 3 of (2)).
That the School Managers under the present Code may not make unlimited school charges additional to tuition fees but are limited to extra charges of not more than 50% of the tuition fees and that this limitation reduces them to figureheads.
(Note: These extra charges or subscriptions are not offset
against approved school expenditure but are used by the school to defray the cost of sports, medical services, library, and the half cost of major repairs and equipment which has to be found by the school. See para. 4 of (2).
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