The number of vacant school premises under the Education Bureau's jurisdiction has been reduced to 29 as a result of its efforts over the past few years, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng says.
Mr Ng was responding to a Legislative Council Public Accounts Committee report released today saying the bureau and Lands Department had failed to efficiently manage the vacant premises.
"If you look at the whole area of vacant school premises for over 10 years, we have been trying very hard, based on an incomplete database, to try to cut down the number of vacancies," he said, adding that the bureau has made special efforts in the last three years.
Mr Ng noted that of the 29 school sites, 14 are already being used, four have been returned to the Government, and two are still being worked on because they are on private land involving land grant complexities and other issues.
The nine other sites are designated for different educational purposes such as temporary decanting sites, he added.
