ENG-1998 — Page 200

EDUCATION

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infrastructure support, while providing more resources and support for those schools which are more advanced in terms of IT-readiness, teacher capability and physical conditions to progress at a faster pace.

Medium of Instruction

The government's language in education policy is to enable students to be biliterate (to master written Chinese and English) and trilingual (to speak fluent Cantonese, Putonghua and English). In this context, it is recognised world-wide that students learn better in their mother tongue. Since the 1980s, the government has promoted mother-tongue teaching while strengthening support for English language learning. Chinese is the medium of instruction in most primary schools, with English taught as a core subject from Primary 1.

In September 1997, the government issued The Medium of Instruction Guidance for Secondary Schools requiring all local public sector secondary schools to adopt the medium of instruction most appropriate to their students. In most cases, Chinese has been adopted as the medium of instruction, starting with the Secondary 1 intake in the 1998-99 school year and progressing each year to a higher level of secondary education. Schools satisfying the requirements in terms of student ability, teacher capability and language learning support strategies and programmes were allowed to teach in English.

In the 1998-99 school year, about 300 secondary schools use Chinese as medium of instruction for all academic subjects except English Language. Positive measures are taken to raise students' English-language proficiency. Secondary schools teaching in Chinese were provided with additional support; an average of two additional English Language teachers for each school, the choice of an additional native-speaking English teacher, a one-off grant for employing clerical staff and purchasing equipment and additional recurrent grants for equipment and library books.

The Board of Education (BOE) and Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) were invited to examine how to further implement the medium of instruction policy and how to achieve the objectives of biliteracy and trilingualism. The BOE and SCOLAR have formed a joint working group for this task and will submit initial recommendations to the government by September 1999.

Quality Education Fund

Pursuant to a recommendation in the Education Commission Report No. 7 (ECR7), the Quality Education Fund (QEF) was formally established on January 2, 1998, with an allocation of $5 billion. The QEF provides an efficient channel to finance school- based projects for the promotion of quality school education in Hong Kong. Projects mainly fall in the following categories: quality of teaching and learning; all-round education; school-based management; education researches; and schemes that award outstanding performance of schools and teachers. All applications are considered by the QEF Steering Committee, which makes recommendations to the government on the award of grants and advises on the policies and procedures regarding the operation of the QEF. In the first call for applications, 2 367 applications were received, of which 520 were approved, involving grants totalling $363 million. The second call for applications was announced in September 1998, and more than 2 000 applications were received.