TNAG-2764-FCO40-3981-UK-Hong-Kong-Scholarship-Scheme-donation-to-the-UK-Governme-1993 — Page 23

Ms Moore

HKD

ICICI CHes

PCS 285/393/2

fl.

Pa Scholarsh

22.4.93

93 plea

(36)

scary.

24

(all

13

on

year,

Courses

*

UK/HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIPS: JOINT FUNDING SCHEME

1.

Thank you for your minute of 24 March. It was helpful to have confirmation that in principle we can now proceed to a phasing out of the joint funding scheme.

2.

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A few figures to introduce our comments: in 1993/94 Hong Kong will be receiving a total of £2.24 million of DW scholarships resources through both the joint funding scheme and FCOSAS-(this excludes an annual contribution of some £125,000 from the non official Sir S K Tang Bequest, which is at HMG's disposal). This represents 22% of total DW scholarships allocation resources and (leaving aside the special cases of Malaysia and Cyprus) is £2 million more than the next highest DW ECOSAS country recipient." In 1993/94.our global DW scholarships resources were cut by £1.5 m. Further substantial cuts/will mean reductions in all of our FCOSAS country allocations (and even the ending of FCOSAS activity altogether in some countries). An - internal AUS command (Mr Alston) review of all of the FCO's scholarship programmes and resources is currently underway.

3. We are prepared to accept that the run down in the latter should not now start until 1994/95 (but will be complete and the scheme ended by 1996/97) rather than in 1993/94. However in return we have to say we must look for a saving of at least £0.5 m from the scheme in 1994/95 (and greater savings in subsequent years) to help plug the gap in the global FCOSAS budget. We shall urgently need figures/guidance from Hong Kong on what the savings are likely to be in each of the three phase-out years. assume that if we only have to fund students continuing from 1993/94/there should be a saving of at least one-third of resources in each year ie a total of some £1.4 milion of which our 50% share would be £0.7 million.

4.

I

On the point of: redeployment of the saved resources to other scholarships activity in Hong Kong, I would make the following comments: -

HKB 285

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10 MAY 1997

235/393 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

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CQDE 18-77

16 APR 1993

As indicated above we need a saving of at least £0.5 million for deployment to the FCOSAS outside Hong Kong.

ん

19941

in 1994

UK/HK Scholarships (merit awards for HK students) is separately already worth some £330,000 a year, bringing in 9 new students each year (all for

three year first degree or postgraduate courses). The UK's 50% share of costs is drawn from a contribution of £40,000 from the FCOSAS with the balance coming from the Sir S K Tang Bequest. I

am very doubtful about putting more money into this scheme. It is not ideally targetted from the point of view of the UK's long term interests, being biased towards first degree candidates. view is that we can better target/talent spot

Our