Hong Kong’s HK$900 million fund for after-school programmes needs better supervision as lawmakers express concern system is open to abuse
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The government’s new HK$900 million fund to encourage more after-school activities for students could be subject to abuse, and should be closely supervised, lawmakers have said.
The warning comes after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced in her second policy address earlier this month, that the government would provide almost a billion dollars a year for its life-wide learning grant starting in the 2019 to 2020 school year.
Legislator Michael Luk Chung-hung said that schools wishing to apply for the fund could do so with little in the way of oversight.
“The schools just have to provide a summary of the extra curricular learning activities, and very often the application has a low threshold,” the pro-establishment lawmaker said.
The life-wide learning fund was established in 2002 by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, and the Education Bureau, to help schools support financially disadvantaged students take part in all-round learning activities organised, or recognised, by the school.