TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 257

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to the control and disbursement of government funds.

However, most

aided schools are under the control of sponsors that is, religious

and other voluntary bodies (such as the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals,

the Hong Kong Buddhist Association, and the Church of Christ in China),

many of which provide a wide range of community services outside the

field of education. These non-profit-making organisations are an

important element in the provision of education, particularly as they

are required to provide 20 per cent of the capital costs of the aided

schools under their control, the other 80 per cent being provided by

the government.' Many sponsoring bodies have a long history of public

service in Hong Kong, deeply rooted in the earlier development of the

territory, and not unnaturally their schools have developed traditions

in some cases the direct result of their religious

and characteristics

affiliations which are highly regarded by certain sections of the

community. A list of the major sponsoring bodies is appended (appendix 0).

3.24

Many schools are now organised in councils which serve to

promote the educational objectives of their member schools and generally

to protect the interests of their staff and pupils. The oldest of these

is the Grant Schools Council, representing the 22 original grant-in-aid

schools; the largest (in membership) are the Subsidised Primary Schools

Council and the Subsidised Secondary Schools Council. At the secondary

level the names "grant" and "subsidised" reflect the former system

whereby different codes of aid existed for the two groups of school,

and although a unified code and common standards of provision now apply

to the two groups at the secondary level and all of their member schools

are classified as "aided", they prefer to retain their former distinctive

identities. There are several such councils and associations (a complete

list is shown at appendix K), some of them recently established, for both

public-sector and private-sector schools. School authorities find it

* estate schools excepted: see paragraph 2.23