HK$500,000 per grade offered to Hong Kong secondary schools to encourage mergers

A cost of not less than HK$500,000 (US$63,745) for every grade is to be supplied to Hong Kong secondary faculties as an incentive to merge with different establishments as the town faces a double whammy from falling rolls and the emigration wave.

Faculties with too few college students in Type One – fewer than two lessons with a complete of 26 pupils – might face closure after the train.

“Because the decline within the school-age inhabitants is structural as a substitute of transitional, we should plan for the availability of public faculty locations in the long term to make sure the wholesome and sustainable growth of the tutorial ecology and make good use of public assets,” the bureau mentioned in a round.

However the round mentioned faculties might retain lecturers to be made redundant on account of a merger for not less than three years.

Two subsidised secondary faculties had been earlier informed they must shut their doorways in 2026.

The bureau selected incentives for varsity sponsoring our bodies to think about the choice of a merger, an answer promoted by the federal government lately.

A college that continued to function Type One after merging with one other establishment will obtain a one-off subsidy of HK$500,000 for every merged grade beneath the plan.

A spokesman for the bureau added if two faculties merged all years from Type One to Six, the only successor can be given HK$3 million.

Different choices embody operating the Type One lessons on a personal foundation and making use of for a particular evaluate by the bureau, offering a broad curriculum, and group actions for these in Type One once they transfer as much as senior grades.

The bureau mentioned the funds had been designed to cowl the bills of a merger.

It added redundant lecturers might be retained for 3 years according to the numbers employed within the merged faculties the 12 months earlier than they joined forces.

2 Hong Kong major faculties to merge as shrinking pupil inhabitants takes toll

Chu Kwok-keung, an training sector lawmaker and principal, mentioned the initiatives would solely be thought-about by giant faculty sponsoring our bodies with dozens of establishments.

“A merger between faculties means the massive faculty eats the small one,” he mentioned.

“The HK$500,000 would solely be given to the massive faculty after the train. How might a small faculty have incentives to merge with one other establishment?”

Lee Yi-ying, head of the Subsidised Secondary College Council, mentioned it welcomed measures to assist cope with the shrinking inhabitants and that the organisation would proceed to carry talks with the federal government on different potential options.

However Chu and Lee agreed the very best answer can be to extend the variety of pupils.

Class dismissed: worse to return for Hong Kong faculties amid falling births, migration

He added some faculty campuses might be transformed into hostels to draw pupils from elsewhere to check within the metropolis.

Authorities statistics confirmed there can be an nearly 14 per cent drop within the variety of kids eligible for Type One over the following few years, down from 71,600 this 12 months to 60,000 in 2029.

And never all of them would be a part of the college place allocation system as they’d go on to non-public sector training.

College sponsoring our bodies have to date given the chilly shoulder to recommendations of mergers, authorities sources mentioned.

There have been solely two mergers to date within the secondary faculties sector to date, with one in all authorities faculties, that are extra simply managed.

The opposite concerned two faculties administered by Caritas Hong Kong deliberate to merge in September 2024.