The Workplace English Campaign invites applications from companies for grants to organise in-house tailor-made English training programmes leading to specified international business English examinations for their employees.

Effective from January 1, funding will be given to meet 50% of the employees' English training costs and examination fees, subject to a maximum of $3,000 per person.

The funding scheme was launched in 2000 with an allocation of $50 million from the Language Fund to subsidise employees who need to use English in the workplace to take the necessary training.

Following a review of the scheme conducted early this year, the Standing Committee on Language Education & Research announced that starting in 2005, the scheme would focus on supporting the provision of in-house tailor-made English training commissioned by employers for their employees. 

Grants for courses offered in the market scrapped

With this new focus in place and the well-established system for individuals to apply to the Continuing Education Fund for English training, applications by employees or by companies on behalf of their employees for grants to attend English training courses offered in the market will no longer be accepted.

Individuals interested in applying for grants for courses offered in the market must submit their applications to the office of the campaign on or before December 31. Submissions made in person must reach the office by 4pm on that day.

Applications for grants for in-house tailor-made English training programmes will be accepted from January 1.

Application forms and guidelines for applying will be available for download at the campaign website on the same day.

Prior to the application, applicants should submit to the office a copy of the course description of the in-house tailor-made training course, setting out how the course is designed specially to meet the needs of the employees of the applying company.

The scheme will subsidise each employee for no more than one in-house tailor-made training course and two examinations for the attainment of, at the most, one spoken benchmark and one written benchmark.

Six international exams added to exam pool

To provide more alternatives in attaining Hong Kong Workplace English Benchmarks, the campaign has recently added six international English examinations to its examination pool to make a total of 23.

Employers are advised to review their needs in selecting the most appropriate examination for their employees.