XN000022-1996-11-06 — Page 32

Reply:

- 15 -

Mr President,

(a)

(b)

The salary scales for academic staff of the University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded institutions are linked to civil service salary scales, as approved by the Government. The current salary levels of academic staff in different departments of the institutions holding similar positions are broadly the same because these salary levels are based on salary scales common to all the UGC-funded institutions.

The UGC-funded institutions adopt a common set of salary scales for academic staff primarily engaged in degree-level work. For staff not engaged primarily in degree level work and employed by those institutions which run sub-degree courses, namely the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED), their pay levels are lower, but the pay scales are broadly the same across institutions.

There are also separate salary scales for clinical academic staff. Clinical staff at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) are remunerated on a different salary scale, which has been set by reference to the remuneration package of Government medical consultants, senior medical officers and medical officers under the current civil service Directorate and Master pay scale.

To the extent that the salary scales of academic staff of the UGC-funded institutions are linked to civil service pay under the present policy, the Government has no plan to commission a feasibility study to review the setting of pay scales for academic and equivalent administrative staff of tertiary institutions to follow market supply and demand. We will keep this policy under periodic review.

End