A SCHOOL principal who won an appeal against his conviction for false accounting faces demotion.
The decision to move Fong Shun-yuen to a lower rank at another school run by the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China in September was reached before the High Court overturned the conviction this month.
While the council said Mr Fong might be able to keep his post if his performance over the next few months was good, the Education Department said his appeal did not mean his behaviour was correct.
Mr Fong, 35, admitted entering the names of bogus workers on pay slips to get government funding for more blackboards and desks. He was given an absolute discharge last October, but the High Court said the conviction was unsafe as the magistrate had failed to mention Mr Fong's clear record.
Yeung Po-kwan, chairman of the council of the Tam Li Lai Fun Memorial Pre-vocational School, said the decision to demote Mr Fong was not a disciplinary move or based solely on the magistrate's ruling.
'The basic consideration should be the interest of the whole school,' Mr Yeung said.
