3 June 1993
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Scholestips
інкв 285/1 RECEIVED IN
ISTRY
22 JUL 1993
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152
John Chan Esq
Secretary for Education and Manpower
Education and Manpower Branch
Government Secretariat
38/F Exchange Square 11
8 Connaught Place
Hong Kong
Der John
UK/HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIPS: FUTURE OF THE JOINT FUNDING SCHEME
Thank you for your letter of 23 March about the Joint Funding Scheme.
We have looked carefully at ExCo's decision to phase-out the Joint Funding Scheme over a three year period commencing in 1994/5. We are now in a position to agree to this. We too wish to ensure that those Hong Kong students studying in the UK in the 1993/94 academic year will continue to be eligible to apply for the awards until the completion of their existing courses. We assume that most courses are for three year periods, so a run-down over the period 1994/5 and 1995/6 would seem the best way of ensuring a smooth phasing-out of the Scheme.
On examining the figures put to the Executive Council in the 5 February Memorandum on the review of the Joint Funding Scheme it seems that the savings you wish to make are roughly comparable to those we would wish to see. We would be looking for a saving of at least £0.5 million in 1994/5 and greater savings in subsequent years. We should now like to have from you fairly urgently more precise advice and guidance on what the yearly savings are likely to be.
We have studied ExCo's suggestion that our savings from the phasing-out of the Joint Funding Scheme should be redeployed to the existing UK/Hong Kong Scholarships. After careful consideration, I am sorry to say that very difficult budgetary constraints mean we will not be able to do this. In these times of severe cuts in resources, our overall scholarships budget has not escaped the axe and we must
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