TNAG-2765-FCO40-3982-UK-Hong-Kong-Scholarship-Scheme-donation-to-the-UK-Governme-1993 — Page 26

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Bearing in mind that an FCOSAS scholarship costs around

£15,000 per annum per student, could the MTC expect to turn

out high calibre students in sufficient numbers?

In your letter you say that participants from Hong Kong, South China and eventually Taiwan will be attending the

Centre. Do you envisage that students from places other than

Hong Kong will benefit from an HMG scholarship programme?

My own view is that we should not dilute the range and scope for Hong Kong scholarships in favour of candidates who may already have access to existing FCOSAS programmes in China,

and Taiwan.

You say that without HMG's support there is reason to suppose that the nature of the training provided by the MTC is likely to change over time in a way which dilutes or even removes its value to Britain. Bearing this in mind, do you believe that a contribution of £100,000 to a scholarship

scheme for the MTC would be enough to maintain HMG's

influence over the running of the Centre and scholarship

candidate selection?

James Smith-Laittan's letter mentioned (perhaps not as

ominously as it read!) that the Hong Kong Government had

sought "certain assurances on the financial feasibility of the

project". It is certainly not realistic to think of our scholarship budget as a major contribution to the survival of this project. On capital costs, it would be useful to know

how much of a real problem funding for bricks and mortar is

for the British Council. As you discussed with Peter Ricketts it is not possible for us to use scholarship funds (revenue) for capital costs. Is it likely that the British Council will be able to raise the necessary £250,000 from

other sources? We might think of making a token contribution

through the AUSPB as a gesture of support. But this would

cornish.0112.SCHO.SH

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