The Education Department is to be merged with the Education and Manpower Bureau within a year, the head of the new portfolio Arthur Li Kwok-cheung said yesterday.
Professor Li, who will officially take office next month as secretary for education and manpower, said the move would solve problems such as overlapping of roles and blurring of powers between the two bodies.
The professor, who has already tendered his resignation as vice-chancellor of the Chinese University, said there would be no layoffs after the merger because the workload of the education portfolio would 'only become heavier'.
He told a Commercial Radio phone-in that no matter what he did, criticism would be 'unavoidable' because education was a difficult area to work in. He also promised to listen more to public opinion.
In response to criticism of the mother-tongue teaching programme, Professor Li said the most important point was to raise student standards in both English and Chinese. He said whether the controversial scheme would be kept depended on the outcome of a government report.
Professor Li said the distribution of resources between local universities would be a problem in the future, because all had different strengths and all were important.
