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Chapter V.
Students' Financial Difficulties.
15. Frequently we have been arrested by the difference of scales of costs in this and in the Chinese Universities. Salaries in Hong Kong of British teachers necessarily are higher than the salaries of Chinese teachers working in their own country. The standard of life in Hong Kong for Chinese is higher than in almost any place in China. We are unable to suggest any means whereby the costs to a student in Hong Kong could ever be brought down to the modest standard, The com- especially of the inland universities.
pulsory charges in the University, $400 a year for tuition, and $300 a year for board and lodging, are high by Chinese standards, but we were even more concerned to hear how much beyond this was normally expended. Inquiries showed that com- monly a student living in vacation with his people in Hong Kong spent on clothes and amusements, including compulsory University subscriptions, about $500 a year. Students from Malaya and other distant places, remaining in Hong Kong during vacation, as commonly they do, might easily A few spend $800 in addition to University fees.
The standard spend considerably more than this. of expenditure on dress undoubtedly is high for Chinese; in part, perhaps, the result of the cheap- nega of Hong Kong compared with Singapore. The standard of spending is, in fact, set up by people accustomed to Straits prices.
16. We considered the possibility of economy to be achieved by allowing students to run their own messing in the hope that directly profiting, they would keep down costs. All the evidence available shows that the saving could not be great. However, in combination with the reduced lodging charges that might be achieved if the experiment suggested in para. 21 (iii) below were successful, it might be sufficient to be important to poorer students.
17. We are convinced by these facts that if students from China are to use the existing facilities of this University or the improved facilities we recommend a generous provision of scholarships is necessary. In fact unless generous provision is
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made we believe that the increased expenditure Not all the
we suggest would largely be wasted. provision need be from British, still less from Colonial, sources. We hope that Chinese interests might be willing to co-operate.
18. (a) We set down here a specific recom- mendation for the establishment of scholarships. This is to be read as an illustration of what is wanted if we are to get an adequate return from increased expenditure. This typical or introduc- tory scheme envisages the raising of a sum of not less than $28,000 annually to be used in money grants for scholarship holders in the following
groups:
(i) four a year, tenable for two years, for post-graduate study in Medicine and En- gineering;
(ii) ten a year, tenable for one or two years, according to their competence in English, for graduates of Chinese Universities, to enable them to give, if necessary, one year to intensive study of English writing and speech (including Phonetics), and one year to courses for a special Diploma in Teaching designed for men and women whose aim is to teach English in China; (iii) four scholarships a year, tenable for periods varying from five to eight years, first for intensive study of English and thereafter for courses in Arts, Science, Engineering or Medicine, to be open to competition among students, male and female, of Chinese Middle Schools.
(The average total of scholarships finally would
be about 56 a year.)
To scholars chosen as above, it is recom- mended that the University should give free tuition and free board and lodging in a Uni- versity hostel, a nominal contribution of $700 yearly for each scholarship: the Scholarship Fund to furnish for each scholarship yearly a sum of $400 and a contingent fund at the rate of $100 a year for each scholarship held, the whole fund to be administered by the Univer- sity for additional assistance to scholarship holders whose need is clearly established. Thus
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