The University Grants Committee has decided to continue the Early Admissions Scheme for secondary six students for the 2004/05 academic year with an additional guideline on a quota for each programme.

The Chinese University, the University of Science & Technology and the University of Hong Kong have agreed to closely monitor the intake of secondary six students to popular programmes.

Under the normal situation, they will not take secondary six students to fill more than one-third of the normal quota for each programme. This is to ensure that sufficient places are available for normal entry students.

Committee chairman Dr Alice Lam hoped that by continuing the scheme, flexibility will continue to be provided for outstanding students to enter institutions funded by the committee one year earlier.

The committee expects that institutions will soon announce recruitment arrangements based on the revised guidelines.

The early admissions scheme was first introduced by seven of the committee-funded institutions for the 2002 entry. It was intended to run on a small scale as an exceptional scheme for exceptional students. 

For the 2003 entry, 411 secondary six students were admitted by three participating institutions under the scheme.