ESF bid for deal to rebuild 14 schools

The English Schools Foundation is seeking to strike a new deal with the government to fund a campus building programme that would see all its 14 publicly funded schools rebuilt within 50 years.

The programme is a key plank of its plan for 2009-12, which was released alongside Friday's announcement of a HK$25,000 refundable capital levy on all new pupils from 2011.

Under the plan, the foundation aims to secure funding for rebuilding Kowloon Junior School and putting up two new buildings at King George V School, and to agree on a new site for Island School within three years.

It also spells out ESF goals for the next 10 years, which include adopting a funding strategy for capital projects that would draw on the ESF's operating surplus, borrowings, private donations and government funding.

Chief executive Heather Du Quesnay said: 'We are looking for a new deal with the government as far as school buildings are concerned. There has never been a settled method for sorting out who is going to pay for the major building projects.

'It is a missing piece in our whole approach to financial management and it is something that I have been conscious of since I have been here. But we have had to deal with the more urgent issues first.'

Du Quesnay said the funding discussions would be separate from negotiations over the future of its government subvention, which had been suspended while the ESF's governing board was reformed and had not yet restarted.