The Education & Manpower Bureau has proposed expanding the operating expenses block grant and introducing a teacher relief grant in schools with incorporated management committees.

At the Legislative Council Panel on Education meeting today, Permanent Secretary for Education & Manpower Fanny Law said the proposal would give greater funding flexibility to provide schools which have established an incorporated management committee more autonomy and flexibility over the use of resources.

The bureau also proposed providing time-limited cash support to help schools to establish such a committee and get familiar with its operation.

Mrs Law expected participatory and transparent school governance will lead to enhanced accountability. Coupled with a proper financial and resource-management system with built-in checks and balances, it will help guard against any abuse of authority or impropriety in the use of resources.

She said schools with incorporated management committees are well-positioned for greater funding flexibility and autonomy to fulfil their functions and powers in line with the spirit of school-based management.

Mrs Law stressed there is no bias in the proposal against any schools, as all schools prepared to set up incorporated management committees on or before August 2009 will get the funding support.

She also pointed out the importance of setting up a reliable checks and balance system so as to prevent abusive use of fundings.

Review in 2008

Mrs Law said all support measures to schools would be included in the review of the school-based management laws in 2008, and decisions will be made on extending any of such measures or not.

In a paper, the bureau said the existing block grant will be expanded by including more non-salary grants, extending the ambit of deployment and relaxing the use of surplus, as well as simplifying the computation and adjustment mechanism.

In the case of a 30-class aided whole-day primary school, the expanded block grant per annum is about $3 million and that of a 30-class aided secondary school, $5 million.

With the new teacher relief grant, the bureau said schools with incorporated management committees can recruit supply teachers by merging the centrally-controlled supply teacher grant and the substitute teacher grant.

The teacher relief grant amounts to a maximum of $1.3 million per annum for a 30-class aided whole-day primary school and about $2.1 million for a 30-class aided secondary school, assuming 10% of the teaching establishment is encashed on a permanent basis.

The bureau said schools with incorporated management committees will have full flexibility in using the grant for employing temporary staff, buying services or organising staff development activities.

The Education (Amendment) Ordinance 2004, which came into effect in January, provides legal backing for key stakeholders to participate in school management and decision-making.

Implementation by 2009

To facilitate the accounting arrangements, the expansion of the block grant and teacher relief grant offer will take effect from the school year following the establishment of the incorporated management committee.

Since the Education Ordinance requires aided schools to submit their draft incorporated management committee constitutions by July 1, 2009, it is anticipated the proposed funding flexibility will be fully implemented by the 2009-10 school year in all aided schools.

Apart from the central support for the establishment and operation of the incorporated management committees, there are school-specific issues which can be handled only by schools and their school-sponsoring bodies.

To help resolve these issues, the bureau will offer a time-limited cash grant to enable the schools to acquire legal and accounting professional services, engage experienced personnel in manpower resources planning and financial matters, organise school-based training, and meet the necessary costs for setting up and smooth running of the incorporated management committee in the initial years.

The bureau proposed to provide an initial time-limited cash grant of $350,000 per school per year in the initial years, representing an increase of about 10% in administrative and other non-salary operational expenses of aided schools.

The grant will be disbursed to schools concerned from the 2005-06 school year leading up to the end of the 2008-09 school year.

Mrs Law said the initial cash grant of $350,000 will be a fixed amount for all schools prepared to set up incorporated management on or before August 2009.

As for the annual cash grant in the run-up to the end of 2008-09 school year, it will be given on a reimbursement basis with the ceiling set at $350,000.

The bureau plans to submit the proposal to the Finance Committee for approval on July 8.