Measures involving an additional recurrent expenditure of $4.7 billion will further enhance the quality of education in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today.

Delivering her second Policy Address at the Legislative Council, Mrs Lam said education is an area which warrants the devotion of resources.

She emphasised that talent is the most important element in Hong Kong’s continued development and education is the key to nurturing talent.

One of the measures she announced is to provide a Life-wide Learning Grant for public schools and schools under the Direct Subsidy Scheme through an annual provision of $900 million.

The grant will support schools in taking forward life-wide learning with enhanced efforts through more out-of-classroom learning activities in curriculum areas including the humanities, STEM education and moral and civic education.

Another measure is to implement in one go the all-graduate teaching force policy in public sector primary and secondary schools, involving an additional funding of about $1.5 billion, to aid teachers’ professional development.

To strengthen school-based management and reduce the administrative work of teachers and principals, public sector schools and schools under the Direct Subsidy Scheme will be provided with extra resources of $570 million each year.

This will strengthen administrative support for schools and their management committees.

An increase in recurrent funding of about $30 million will promote parent education and home-school co-operation starting from the 2019-20 school year.

Also, an additional $800 million a year will be provided to boost support for students with special educational needs, including enhancing the educational psychologist to school ratio and creating school-based speech therapist posts in public sector ordinary schools.

Mrs Lam added she looked forward to working hand in hand with the education sector in nurturing quality future generations for Hong Kong.