''The fall in participation was most probably due to the fact that while last year's competition was held in May, it was held earlier this year, when students were more preoccupied with their exams,'' Mr Mak said.

Candidates from 31 schools had participated in the competition, he said.

''Though each school could nominate a total of three contestants, we do accommodate more participants from one school if they express a keen interest,'' he said.

The event was co-organised by the Education Department, with the Hongkong Computer Society and the Hongkong Association for Computer Education, and sponsored by Hongkong Telecom, AST and Microsoft.

The smaller number of entrants had not affected the overall standard of the competition, Mr Mak said.

He said the standard had remained consistently high, as it had been in previous years.

The results of the local competition, however, will only be available next week.

Mr Mak said: ''The three co-organisers have to jointly review the proceedings of the competition before they can select a winner.'' SCC'93 was open to students under 18 years old.

''Though the contestants seemed very nervous at first, they seemed to get into the spirit of the competition very quickly,'' Mr Mak said.

Contestants were asked to solve programming problems focusing on string or numeric manipulation, array and text graphics, using the programming language GW-BASIC.

Mr Mak said that organisers would be examining the reasons behind the drop in the number of contestants.

The primary objective of the 12-nation SEARCC is to boost awareness of the information technology industry.

Hongkong hosts the conference once every 12 years.