TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 203

2.24

16

Most private schools are run as profit-making institutions

and the government does not meet any part of their capital or

recurrent costs. Their tuition fees are, however, subject to the

approval of the Director of Education: in this connection they have

recently been permitted to set fees at 3 per cent above the agreed

notional levels, provided that the additional income is used to

supplement their teachers' salaries, a measure designed to promote

reasonable standards in such schools. Because all the public-sector

schools which are needed to meet the government's secondary expansion

targets have not yet been built, the government "buys" places at some

of the better-run private secondary schools (both non-profit-making

and independent) that is, the government pays to the schools concerned

the tuition fees of those pupils who have been sent there because

there are insufficient places in the government and government-aided

sector to accommodate them: this arrangement was introduced to avoid

delay in the implementation of the plan for nine years' free and

compulsory education for the 6 14 age groups. The bought places

in private independent schools will eventually be phased out as more

public-sector places become available. Under the bought-places scheme

limited recurrent aid is given to the non-profit-making schools

concerned (in the form either of a per caput grant or, in respect of

the residual Assisted Private Schools, teachers' allowances and

classroom allowances details are given in chapter 5).

2.25

The term "public-sector" places (when used in this report

in reference to schools) means those provided in government and government

aided schools, together with the bought places in private schools.

All other places are described as "private-sector" places. Fuller

information on the financing of schools is given in chapter 5.