LettersHow Hong Kong’s public funded gifted education programmes can better serve the community

Launched in 2016 to nurture gifted students and unleash their potential, the Gifted Education Fund has been injected with HK$1.6 billion (US$204 million) to support the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education, implement measures recommended by the Advisory Committee on Gifted Education and encourage gifted education providers to provide quality advanced learning programmes for eligible students.

A total of 31 programmes have been launched by various institutions over the past three years, and 1,162 students have enrolled in them. Given this, the Education Bureau should provide more data about these programmes, and make the course material publicly available to better serve the community of gifted students in Hong Kong.

Since the programmes are funded by the government, the bureau owns the copyrights to the course material developed for gifted students. As only a limited number of students can enrol in the programmes, the bureau should share the course material through the resource platform at EdCity so more talented students can benefit. The bureau should also encourage these programmes to be offered through asynchronous video lessons in combination with face-to-face workshops and tutorial sessions to allow more flexibility in their teaching and learning.

The funded learning programmes vary greatly in terms of the maximum number of participants, the number of applicants and the level of enrolment. Some programmes can accept only three to five students, whereas others can take up to 235 participants. The acceptance rates of the programmes also vary widely, from 7.3 per cent to 87.5 per cent. To assess the cost-effectiveness of these programmes, we asked the Education Bureau to provide information on the total amount of funding for the learning programmes launched over the past three years, and the number of hours that students spent in each programme.

Regrettably, the bureau declined to disclose the funding figures, saying, “Disclosure of the information requested would harm or prejudice negotiations, commercial or contractual activities”. This is even though the aggregate data we requested would not reveal the costs of individual programmes. The bureau also said that no data was available on the duration of the programmes despite such information being collected in the application forms for funding support. We urge the Legislative Council’s Panel on Education and the Ombudsman to look into this, and ensure that taxpayer money is well spent on gifted education.