8
post-secondary college qualifications for the purpose of setting entry pay.
3.9
In paragraph 34 of Report No. 1, we mentioned that the gap between the school certificate and matriculation benchmarks, i.e. Point 5 for school certificate and Point 16 for matriculation, appeared too large. That is to say, eleven pay points is too great a difference for two years' additional general education. We made no adjustments to these benchmarks in our Report No. 2 because at that time we had insufficient evidence on which to base a recommendation. Subsequently, we commissioned a survey by the Pay Investigation Unit to obtain evidence on the starting pay associated with educational qualifications in the private sector. We have now received the results of this survey which clearly indicate that while the benchmark for school certificate is not at an inappropriate level, that for matriculation is too high. This does not necessarily mean that the pay scales of all grades within the matriculation group are too high since other factors have to be taken into account, and we propose to consider this problem in detail in a later review.
Grades with Student Ranks
3.10
Our re-examination of certain individual grades has revealed an unsatisfactory situation with regard to the pay scales of grades with student ranks, i.e. those listed in Chapter 10 of our Report No. 2. This arises from the system of setting pay scales for grades with student ranks on the basis of the educational qualification required for entry to the training rank. In most cases, the occupants of these ranks are students undergoing training in a manner somewhat similar to that provided by the Hong Kong Polytechnic and registered post-secondary colleges. Thus the situation exists where on the one hand, students undergo training outside Government at their own expense and enter the civil service at rates of pay set having regard to the qualification they then hold, while, on the other hand, students are paid and trained by Government itself and on completion of their training enter a grade the structure of which is influenced by the educational qualifications which they required to join the civil service as a student.
3.11
This is particularly unsatisfactory in the case of grades whose students require matriculation.
The pay structure of these grades is such that, after three years' training, the starting pay for the first functional rank is higher than that which is considered appropriate for a university graduate.
3.12
In our opinion, the pay scales of civil service grades should be set having regard to the educational qualifications required for the job undertaken by the
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