Yew Chung negotiates for failed international college campus

The Yew Chung Education Foundation is seeking to acquire the Kowloon Tong site of the defunct Canadian Overseas International College to expand its primary section.

The foundation began negotiations with the site's owners after the financially-troubled school folded last weekend.

The Kowloon Tong site remains vacant after the English Schools Foundation (ESF), with support from the Government, agreed this week to run a new private independent school (PIS) for the affected students and teachers at a campus formerly occupied by the Australian International School in Cheung Sha Wan.

Named Phoenix International School, it will be the first PIS school to begin operation. The ESF is building a permanent campus in Ma On Shan and is likely to move students to the new site in 2004.

Winnie Cheng Wai-yee, assistant director of the Yew Chung Education Foundation, said the organisation had planned to build another primary school in Kowloon Tong. 'We need more space and that site is ideal as it is close to our two kindergartens,' said Ms Cheng.

The foundation operates 10 international schools in Hong Kong, the mainland and the US. It will have an increased presence in Kowloon Tong with plans to move its current secondary school in Caldecott Road, Piper's Hill, to a newly allocated site next to the MTR station.