Carrie Lam’s cash boost for Hong Kong education passes first hurdle

Plans for a quick-fire injection of about HK$4.3 billion into the education sector will be submitted to the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee after lawmakers raised no objections at a meeting on Monday.

Last week Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced details of an extra HK$3.6 billion a year in spending – part of a HK$5 billion plan she promised earlier – plus HK$714 million to extend the tide-over grant for kindergartens offering free classes by an extra three years.

The measures included increasing the teacher-to-class ratio by 0.1 for all public primary and secondary schools and providing an annual subsidy of HK$30,000 for students pursuing full-time locally-accredited self-financing undergraduate programmes in Hong Kong who meet the entry requirements or have completed relevant sub-degree programmes.

Lam expressed the hope that the Finance Committee would approve her brainchild before the summer break in time for the next school year.

After a heated debate on details of how the HK$3.6 billion should be spent, the chairwoman of Legco’s education panel, Ann Chiang Lai-wan, asked members whether they supported the Education Bureau in submitting the proposal to the committee. She received no objection. A bureau spokeswoman later confirmed it would submit the plan.