ENG-2006 — Page 197

Education I 161

bodies. In the 2005-06 academic year, 29 523 people received non-means-tested loans of $1,040.6 million.

Scholarships and Other Assistance Schemes

The Student Financial Assistance Agency administers a number of privately funded scholarships and assistance schemes for students. Scholarships are mainly merit-based and provided for both local studies and overseas studies.

Tuition Fee Reimbursement for Project Yi Jin Students

The Government provides all Project Yi Jin students with a 30 per cent reimbursement of tuition fees paid for each module that has been successfully completed. For needy students who pass a means test, the tuition fees paid are fully reimbursed.

Continuing Education Fund

A $5 billion Continuing Education Fund was launched in June 2002 to subsidise adults who wish to pursue continuing education and training courses in specified sectors. Eligible applicants are reimbursed 80 per cent of their fees, up to $10,000, on successful completion of a reimbursable course or module forming part of the course. Over 338 900 applications had been received by the end of 2006.

Community Participation in Education

Home-school Cooperation

The Committee on Home-school Cooperation (CHSC) was set up in 1993 to promote positive attitudes towards home-school cooperation and to encourage the establishment of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs). Up to 2006, more than 1 300 PTAs had been established to foster home-school cooperation in a sustained way. In the 2006-07 school year, the EMB had funded the PTAs to organise about 2 500 school-based and district-based parent education activities. The committee will continue to take forward initiatives with a view to deepening home-school cooperation and supporting schools in promoting parent education.

The EMB strives to continue to provide diversified parent education programmes to help synergise the strength of community, schools and families to support parents and enable a sustainable development of parental capabilities in the education of their children.

School Business Partnership

In 2005, the EMB launched the Business-School Partnership Programme to lead students out of the classroom to gain a wider perspective of society and to prepare them for life after school. In 2006, more than 130 business firms participated in the programme. The participating firms organised more than 250 activities, such as workplace visits, workshops, job shadowing and work attachment, benefiting more than 15 000 students.

Some non-profit-making organisations also ran

organisations also ran programmes under which 'ambassadors' from the participating companies.

participating companies introduced the concept of