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Incentive award for production of Chinese-medium textbooks
The Finance Committee of the Legislative Council today (Friday) approved a commitment of $54.4 million for the Chinese Textbooks Committee to implement phase IV of the Incentive Award Scheme to produce 16 sets of quality Chinese- medium textbooks and reference books for secondary schools.
Under the Incentive Award Scheme on the production of Chinese-medium textbooks and reference books in selected subjects for secondary schools, publishers will receive a financial award when their books are found to be suitable for use at the relevant levels in the secondary schools.
The award will vary in amount depending upon the number of pages of each set of books to cover the entire syllabus of each subject.
The Chinese-medium textbooks for seven selected S1-5 subjects are Retail Merchandising for $1-3, Engineering Science, Human Biology, Economics and Public Affairs, Government and Public Affairs, Social Studies and Design and Technology for $4-5.
Chinese-medium reference books to be produced will be those on the nine selected sixth-form subjects. They are Art and Design, Biology, Business Studies, Engineering Science, Pure Mathematics, Government and Public Affairs, Chemistry and Applied Mathematics for Advanced Level and Mathematics and Statistics for Advanced Supplementary Level.
The books produced should be available for use in schools on or before September 1, 1998 to meet the needs of the schools adopting Chinese as the medium of instruction for the secondary and sixth form courses.
Textbooks for S1-5 will be reviewed and assessed by the Textbooks Reviewing Panel of the Education Department comprising officers from the Curriculum Development Institute and practising teachers on voluntary basis while the sixth-form reference books by an independent reviewing panel with lecturers from tertiary institutions and experienced sixth-form teachers.
Publishers joining the incentive award scheme are required to sign an undertaking and to pay a $50,000 deposit with the Government to guarantee that the books are produced in accordance with the schedule of the Chinese Textbooks Committee.