XN000022-1996-03-07 — Page 14

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This amount will include some $6 million to be provided within his global allocation.

In the Draft Estimates for 1996-97, a recurrent expenditure of $2.7 million, rising to $17.6 million on a full year basis, has been earmarked for recruiting some 100 qualified native English speaking teachers for schools.

"The scheme will help increase the exposure of our students to the use of English language, in particular the spoken English," Mr Wong said.

To implement another important recommendation of ECR on Putonghua education, Mr Wong said the Government had provided $10 million annually in recurrent expenditure to improve and expand teaching and learning of Putonghua in schools.

In 1996-97, $1.2 million will be used to develop a new Putonghua curriculum for Primary One to Secondary Five students for introduction in September 1998.

Starting this summer, the Government will organise summer classes for primary and secondary students who wish to learn Putonghua. The annual cost for this project will be about $10 million.

Also, training for teachers will be enhanced this year to ensure that there will be an adequate supply of trained teachers for teaching new Putonghua curriculum in primary and secondary schools.

As recommended by EC, schools would be encouraged to employ qualified native Putonghua speaking teachers who should assist in training teacher trainers and trainees of both the pre-service and in-service teacher education programme.

"All these measures will pave way for including Putonghua in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination as an independent subject in the year 2000 as announced in the 1995 Policy Address," Mr Wong said.

On ECR6's recommendation that intensive English courses should be extended to some 10,000 Secondary Six and Seven students in English medium schools to further improve their language skills at university entrance level, Mr Wong said a recurrent cost of $11.5 million a year had been earmarked to start the programme from September this year.