The following is issued on behalf of the Quality Education Fund Steering Committee:
The fifth call for applications for grants from the Quality Education Fund (QEF) closed on 31 December 2001. Mr Irving Koo, Chairman of the Quality Education Fund Steering Committee, has today (January 3) announced the response of the school sector to the call.
"As at noon of 2 January, we have received a total of 857 applications seeking grants of about $493 million. Of these applications, about 75% of them fall within the three designated themes of "Project Learning and Curriculum Integration", "Moral and Civic Education" and "Reading Proficiency" and the grants sought in these applications amount to about $394 million," said Mr Koo.
"In terms of the response of individual school sector, 26% of the total applications came from the secondary school sector, 52% from the primary school sector, 18% from the pre-primary school sector and 4% from the special school sector," Mr Koo added.
"A more focussed approach has been adopted for the fifth call for applications. The QEF has approved grants totalling $2,717 million for 4 341 projects since its establishment in January 1998. The focussed approach for the fifth call will provide an opportunity for schools to consolidate their experience and learning from the funded projects. It will also enable the QEF Steering Committee to devote more efforts to monitoring and promoting approved projects as well as mapping out a more effective strategy for the dissemination of good practices that have evolved from QEF projects which is our work focus in 2002. In addition, in view of the current investment climate and the balance of the Fund, a more focussed approach can help maintain a reasonable capital base of the Fund," Mr Koo continued.
The results of the applications of the fifth call will be announced in June 2002. Under the fifth call, only the school sector (i.e. all pre-primary, primary, secondary and special schools) is eligible to apply, provided that they do not have any QEF projects in hand as at 1 September 2002 in the capacity of a grantee. Applications should focus on three designated themes - "Project Learning and Curriculum Integration", "Moral and Civic Education" and "Reading Proficiency". All these themes tie in with the focus of the implementation of education reform. Nevertheless, to encourage schools which have never applied for QEF funding or which have yet to be successful in their applications other than for installing air-conditioning to submit applications, they are allowed to submit applications beyond these three themes. Only one application is allowed from each school.
To honour the goodwill of the Hong Kong Jockey Club which has generously agreed to provide a matching grant of 50% of the cost of air-conditioning, applications for grants for air-conditioning will continue to be considered under the fifth call, despite that the schools may have on-going QEF projects in hand as at 1 September 2002.
The QEF was set up to fund bottom-up initiatives which promote quality education and to disseminate the good practices of the successful projects to the wider education community.
End/Thursday, January 3, 2002