TNAG-2765-FCO40-3982-UK-Hong-Kong-Scholarship-Scheme-donation-to-the-UK-Governme-1993 — Page 156

useful

for ODA to determine a line to take before

Commissioners' meeting.

the

9. We have no reason to believe that SYKPF wish to extend the

scheme beyond 1997. Our impression is that they are not keen to

do so.

We expect that SEdC would favour an extension.

ARGUMENT

Extension Beyond 1997

10. The main argument in favour of extending the scheme is that

ODA's contribution stimulates SYKPF and SEdC co-funding and thus,

in a sense, enables £1.6m to buy three times as much UK training

as ODA alone could.

11. The scheme provides significant business for the British Council and UK academic institutions, and they would be pleased

if it were extended, though they do not expect it to be.

12. The scheme does not sit well with the recommendations of the

'Power of Change' Review of Training. Nor is it focussed on ODA's priority sectors in China. The original need for a rapid

increase in the number of academic staff at Chinese universities

with PhD degrees has largely been satisfied by the scheme.

13. Our policy is to focus our China TC programme on China's

grave environmental problems and on promoting better government. The number of attractive proposals substantially exceeds the capacity of our aid framework allocation, and our budget is consequently under considerable pressure.

For historical

reasons, a very large proportion of our China TC programme (60%) is devoted to training in the UK. One of our Country Review Paper objectives is to reduce the share of the budget spent on

training so as to be able to devote more funds to TC projects in