be integrated. A common credit-unit system has been established, which enables students at the technical institutes to follow programmes which are complementary to those in the Polytechnic and which can facilitate their transfer to courses in the Polytechnic. This system will continue to be developed.
6.14 The provision of places at the universities and the Polytechnic makes a heavy demand on public funds. While a high level of expenditure is necessary in order to maintain courses at the appropriate standard, advantage should be taken of suitable opportunities for savings. The Government will ask the UPGC to moderate expenditure whenever this does not lower academic standards or other real benefits to the students and the community.
Post-secondary colleges
6.15
The Government intends to regularise the role of the post-secondary colleges, which the Post Secondary Colleges Ordinance envisaged as private institutions offering four-year courses for Form V leavers. It has become increasingly difficult for private institutions to run courses of tertiary education at a good standard, while keeping costs at a level that most students can afford.
6.16 The Government is anxious that approved post secondary colleges should be placed on a sound financial basis to ensure that reasonable standards are maintained. Yet if the Govern- ment is to provide financial support, it must be able to decide how colleges should complement the courses available elsewhere and how they can contribute most effectively to tertiary education. The size of the colleges, their level of academic operation and the types of courses they provide have a crucial bearing on the costs that are required to maintain appropriate facilities.
6.17
The levels at which there would appear to be the greatest need to supplement what the public sector is able to provide lie in extending the range of opportunities for the Form V leaver wishing to take a two-year course at the sixth-form level and to continue thereafter for two further years on a course which will equip him with a professional or other vocational qualification. Following discussions with representatives of the approved post-secondary colleges, the Government proposes to assist in the provision of places at the colleges at both these levels, provided that the colleges restructure their courses. The rate of assistance for each student taking a two-year course at the sixth-form level would be calculated with reference to the unit cost for a sixth-form place in an aided grammar school. The rate of assistance for each student taking a subsequent two-year professional or vocational course would be at 120% of the unit cost figure for a sixth-form place. Although the level of fees for each course will be determined by the colleges, subject to the approval of the Director of Education, the subsidy in respect of students at the sixth-form level will be adjusted to take account of the standard fee applicable to sixth forms in schools. The subsidy for students on the two-year post-Form VI courses will assume a present fee level of $2,500 (which is the lower of the fees presently charged by the two colleges registered under the Ordinance for entry in the 1977-78 academic year).
6.18 The two-year courses at the sixth-form level will lead to the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination, to an examination which is recognised as being of an equivalent standard (such as the G.C.E. Advanced Level Examination or the International Baccalaureate) or to a new examination, the syllabus for which would be proposed by a college and assessed by the Hong Kong Examinations Authority as being at an equivalent level.
6.19 The qualifications awarded to students completing satisfactorily the two-year post- Form VI courses will be aligned with those awarded by the Polytechnic to comparable students. The Director of Education will arrange for independent assessments to be made of the standard on which the award was based, so that the basis for comparison with the Polytechnic would be clear.
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