TNAG-2484-FCO40-3615-UK-Hong-Kong-Scholarship-Scheme-donation-to-the-UK-Governme-1992 — Page 14

香港總督府

Personal

by Fax

par. You

schot 77

GOVERNMENT HOUSE

HONG KONG

};

1992

23 December 1992

Dean Pelei

Margel

We'll need

sul messia

cleared mill- CRD

Scholarships: FCO Contribution

I am sorry not to have replied sooner to your letter of 2 December. You were right in saying that the future of the Joint Funding Scheme has been under consideration. In fact a position has only just been agreed internally here, hence the delay. But I should at least have sent you an interim response. Apologies!

The background is that the recommendation submitted to the Governor following a recent official-level review was to start phasing out the Joint Funding Scheme as from 1993/94. The reason for this was that after 1997 it would be difficult to justify maintaining a special scheme to assist Hong Kong students studying in the UK but nowhere else. The phasing-out would have to take place over at least three years if students who had already started degree programmes were not to be caught out in 1997.

A preference emerging from liberal elements in LegCo has been for similar schemes to be developed to assist Hong Kong students studying in other countries or failing that to discontinue the JFS and redeploy the money to local educational uses. However, advice from the Branch has been that the former would be costly and that other countries (principally Canada, USA and Australia) were unlikely to provide matching funds for JFS-type schemes.