Eleventh-hour rethink by unlicensed science workshop after Government probe over safety

A company which had planned to offer science classes has been forced to rethink following an Education Department inquiry.

The department was alerted to Science Workshop, on the 27th floor of the Universal Trade Centre in Arbuthnot Road, Central, by other tenants in the commercial building, who said it was unlicensed and breaking the Education Ordinance by being more than 24 metres above the ground.

The workshop had been due to hold an open day on June 10 and planned to offer summer science classes to children between the ages of three to 12 from June 18.

But yesterday afternoon it said it would be considering 'alternate plans' after the department ordered it to stop taking applications from parents.

The move came after a senior education officer with the department wrote this week to another tenant in the building. 'We have written to the operators advising them not to enrol students and to cease the recruitment advertising exercise until their proposed establishment satisfies our legal requirements,' wrote Wu Wong Kit-wai. 'We will closely monitor the operation of any unregistered school in the alleged premises and will take further action, including prosecution, if operation of an unregistered school is established,' she wrote. Operators without a licence risk a fine of HK$250,000 and two years in prison, Ms Wu told Education Post.

In a statement yesterday, a Science Workshop representative who declined to be named told Education Post that some summer courses were still possible.