Funding rescues school
A primary school in Shek Kip Mei has been saved from closure after being approved to join the Direct Subsidy Scheme.
Lingnan University Alumni Association Primary School will offer a new Primary One class with government funding.
To qualify for the aid the school had to fulfil stipulations by the Education and Manpower Bureau. These included proving its education quality, as well as financial requirements and the approval of its sponsoring body, Lingnan University Alumni Hong Kong, according to supervisor Tinlo Poon Pa-yuen.
However, its academic advisory board will ask the EMB to postpone its operation under the scheme until 2006-7 to allow it more time to prepare. Mr Poon said it was too late to recruit enough students for the coming academic year.
The DSS approval had eased the worries of staff at the school, he said. The school opened 40 years ago to serve one of the government's first reclamation projects in the low-income area, which is also home to many immigrants from the mainland.
As a DSS school, Lingnan will offer a scholarship to families who cannot afford the monthly $800 tuition fee.
'We have proven that we are going in the right direction and the EMB is satisfied with what we are doing. We can still exist. It's good news,' Mr Poon said.
The EMB stopped funding Lingnan's Primary One class last September, after it enrolled just 18 students, fewer than the minimum 23 needed for government aid. The school would have closed after existing students left.
The EMB has already turned down appeals by six under-enrolled primary schools to admit Primary One classes in September.
