Advertisement

Blood bank an unwitting victim of 3+3+4 education reform: Red Cross

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Blood donors at the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service headquarters in Jordan yesterday. Photo: Edward Wong

The new 3+3+4 education system is taking a toll on an unlikely victim: the Red Cross says its blood bank is suffering from a drop in donations collected from secondary schools.

Advertisement
University students generally donated blood less often than secondary school pupils did, Dr Lee Cheuk-kwong, a Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service consultant, said yesterday.

"Among undergraduate students eligible to give blood, less than 10 per cent of them actually make donations," Lee said. "But among secondary school pupils, the rate is 15 to 16 per cent."

Lee said the amount of blood collected by mobile collection teams at schools decreased last year.

He attributed the drop in donations to the 3+3+4 reforms to the education system, which started in the 2009-10 academic year.

Advertisement

That year, secondary school education was cut from seven to six years and standard university degree courses were lengthened from three to four years.

That was the main reason behind the 14.6 per cent decline in the overall number of bags of blood collected by the mobile teams throughout the city, Lee said.

loading
Advertisement