Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
LCQ8: Coping with decline in school-age population
| District(3) to (5) In view of the ongoing trend of structural decline in the school-age population, the EDB must take timely and appropriate actions to reduce the surplus of school places by various means in the planning for the supply of school places. This includes ceasing to operate, as planned, four time-limited primary schools and actively encouraging School Sponsoring Bodies (SSBs) to relocate public sector schools through fair and competitive School Allocation Exercises from districts with surplus of school places to districts with higher demand for school places or New Development Areas (NDAs). This will not only meet the demand for school places in NDAs, but also balance the supply of school places among districts and help create a stable education environment to achieve a win-win situation.
The EDB has been encouraging SSBs and schools to act according to the circumstances, prepare ahead by taking into consideration the overall situation of Hong Kong, and the district and school circumstances, in order to plan for and formulate the direction most suitable for schools’ long-term development as early as possible to safeguard the interest of student learning. Therefore, apart from the above measures, the EDB has, for the first time, opened up certain options, in the EDB Circular No. 1/2025, for all aided primary schools (regardless of their number of approved P1 classes) and their SSBs to apply. Among all, all aided primary schools and their SSBs may apply for the option of “Merger with other schools”. In order to facilitate the smooth implementation and transition of the approved merger, and ensure that students who need to transfer to other schools due to the merger can receive comprehensive support to adapt to the new learning environment for continuing the primary school curriculum, if a school is merged into another school so as to allow the same cohort of students to continue their primary school curriculum in the school after merger, the school operating subsidised P1 classes after merger may be granted a one-off additional allowance in the amount of at most $1 million to cover the additional expenses incurred during the merger. If, in the year(s) of merger, there are redundant teachers in the school that continues to operate P1 classes, it will be allowed to retain, for three years, the incumbent teachers on the approved teaching staff establishment related to the levels under merger of the two schools in the school year preceding the merger so that the school may have time to adjust the staff strength through natural wastage and other means.Issued at HKT 16:55 NNNN |