Way Forward for Quality Education Fund
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The following is issued on behalf of the Quality Education Fund Steering Committee:
Chairman of the Quality Education Fund (QEF) Steering Committee, Mr Irving Koo, today (October 20) announced the outcomes of the reviews on the QEF and the way forward for the Fund, including the arrangements for the 6th call applications.
To help reflect and consolidate its experiences after five years of operation, the QEF Steering Committee decided last year to conduct a comprehensive review of the operations of the QEF, Mr Koo said.
The Committee had engaged the Management Services Agency (MSA) to carry out a process re-engineering review, the Melbourne University Private (MUP) to study the evaluation methodology for QEF projects, and ACNielsen to conduct a users opinion survey.
Both MSA and MUP had benchmarked the practices of QEF with other local and international funding agencies and found that they were similar.
"It is particularly pleasing to note the comments of the MUP that the QEF had had a significant impact on education in Hong Kong and had brought about culture change in the school sector," Mr Koo said.
Recommendations of the MSA and the MUP included the amalgamation of the present sub-committees of the QEF Steering Committee, the enhancement of support services for the applicants and the adoption of an appeal system on procedural matters.
The MUP has also recommended a comprehensive evaluation model be developed to guide schools in their self-reflection of needs and self-evaluation of project impact.
Turning to the opinion survey, Mr Koo said it was completed with a high response rate of 67% out of a survey population of 7 545.
"We are pleased to note that over 90% of the respondents appreciated the value of the Fund and were satisfied with its performance. They recognized the positive impact of the Fund on school resources, school culture, teachers' professional development and teaching effectiveness," he said.
But a number of respondents opined that there was heavy workload caused by the application procedures and that more detailed reasons should be given to unsuccessful applicants.
"In the light of the survey findings, ACNielsen has identified areas for improvements, including aspects of application, assessment and monitoring," Mr Koo said.
He said that the recommendations of the studies and the survey were very useful materials in the deliberation of the way forward for the QEF.
As recommended by the MUP, the QEF will adopt a more strategic approach in funding projects and regular reviews will be conducted to ensure that the Fund will yield a maximum impact on education in Hong Kong. More assistance will be provided to schools and dissemination of good project outcomes will be enhanced. Efforts will continue to be made to enhance the transparency of the operation of the Fund.
In the light of the review findings and the successful experience of the fifth call, the QEF Steering Committee has decided that priority themes will continue to be suggested for project proposals having regard to the education priorities. For the 6th call, the suggested themes are "Learning and Teaching Effectiveness", "Language Enhancement", "Professional Development" and "Moral and Civic Education".
For the 6th call, the Fund will continue to be open to all for applications including schools, tertiary institutions, individuals, public bodies and non-government organizations, provided that they do not have any on-going projects in hand as at September 1, 2003. Similar to the fifth call, there will be limitations on the number of applications from eligible applicants to forestall creating excessive workload. In normal case, only one application is permitted from each eligible applicant.
To ensure sustainability of the Fund so as to benefit the school sector for the long term, the QEF Steering Committee has decided to set a funding ceiling for each call having regard to the annual income of the Fund. A funding limit will also be set for each project so that more schools would benefit.
"For the 6th call, assuming an annual return rate of 4% and based on the current balance of the Fund, the estimated annual income is about $145 million and the overall funding ceiling is set accordingly," Mr Koo said.
"The maximum grant for each project would be $500,000 in normal cases and $5 million for exceptional cases. The total grants for exceptional cases would be capped at 30% of the overall funding ceiling of the call," he added.
To honour the goodwill of the Hong Kong Jockey Club for providing a 50% matching grant, air-conditioning of classrooms and libraries in public sector schools will continue to be funded in the 6th call.
Applications for the 6th call will be accepted from November 1, 2002 and the deadline is January 15, 2003. Application forms can be downloaded from the QEF Website (http://www.info.gov.hk/qef/) or obtained from the QEF Secretariat from November 1, 2002. For enquiry, please contact the QEF Secretariat through the hotline 2921 8833.
The QEF was set up in 1998 with a capital grant of $5,000 million to fund bottom-up initiatives which would promote quality education in Hong Kong. So far, a total of five calls have been made and the QEF has approved grants totalling about $2,800 million for more than 4 600 projects.