Universities have attacked the government and the University Grants Commission (UGC) for leaving them in the dark about funding for the next academic year and triennium.
Alexander Tzang Hing-chung, deputy president of Polytechnic University (PolyU), said his university had not received any response to its queries to the UGC to let it know as soon as possible about funding arrangements for 2004-05 and the triennium from 2005-08.
'We've been asking the UGC repeatedly for information,' he said.
Leaving announcements on resource allocation for 2005-08 until early 2005 was inadequate. 'We can't rely on guesstimates for planning purposes,' he said, adding that the university needed to know the scale of funding cuts it could face.
'If the cut it going to be only half a per cent, then it is not a problem if we are told at the last minute. But, because it is going to be much larger, advance notice is critical,' he said.
Professor John Malpas, pro-vice-chancellor (Planning and Resources) at the University of Hong Kong, said institutions needed to know within the next six months how much they were going to get for the next triennium, and should be given a 'worst-case scenario'.
He said details for the next triennium were 'fuzzy' and that HKU was bracing itself for cuts of up to 25 per cent over the next five years.
